hearse

• enPR: hûrs
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /hɜːs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hɝs/

• Audio (UK):

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• Homophone: herse
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s

From Middle English herse, hers, herce, from Old French herce, from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin herpicem, hirpex; ultimately from Oscan 𐌇𐌉𐌓𐌐𐌖𐌔 (hirpus, “wolf”), a reference to the teeth, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“stiff, rigid, bristled”).^[1] The Oscan term is related to Latin hīrsūtus (“bristly, shaggy”), whence English hirsute. Doublet of herse (“kind of gate”).

• herse (obsolete)

hearse (plural hearses)

1. A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.
2. A grave, coffin, tomb, or sepulchral monument.
   • 1621, Ben Jonson, Epitath to Mary Herbert:

     underneath this sable hearse

   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Third Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC:

     Beside the hearse a fruitful palm tree grows,

   • 1882, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, To the Avon:

     who lies beneath this sculptured hearse

3. A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.

4. A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.

hearse (third-person singular simple present hearses, present participle hearsing, simple past and past participle hearsed)

1. (dated) To enclose in a hearse; to entomb.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!

• “hearse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “hearse”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “hearse”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

hearse (plural hearses)

1. Alternative form of hearst (“A hind (female deer) in the second or third year of her age”).

• harees, heares, sharee