funeral
noun
Simple meaning
A ceremony to honor and remember a deceased person, often distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the body of the deceased.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fyooneruhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfjunɚəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A ceremony to honor and remember a deceased person, often distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the body of the deceased.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A ceremony to honor and remember a deceased person, often distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the body of the deceased.
Used this way, funeral is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use funeral
- “Hundreds of people attended his funeral.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects.
One whose business is the management of funerals.
A mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects.
A slow march to be played for funeral processions.
A mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects.
A mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.