Cemetery — From Greek via Latin to English | etymologist.ai
cemetery
/ˈsɛmɪtri/·noun·1432·Established
Origin
From Greek 'koimetherion' (sleeping place) — Christians chose this wordbecause they viewed death as sleep before resurrection.
Definition
A large burial ground, especially one not in a churchyard.
The Full Story
Greek via Latin15th centurywell-attested
From LateLatin 'coemeterium', from Greek 'koimētērion' (sleeping place, burial ground), from 'koiman' (to put to sleep), from PIE *ḳei- (to lie down, to rest). ThePIE root *ḳei- producesSanskrit 'śete' (he lies down), Latin 'quies' (rest) — source of 'quiet' and 'requiem' — and Greek 'keimai' (to lie down). Early Christian communities adopted the Greek word
use. The semantic history encodes Christian resurrection theology — death as temporary sleep — in a word now used entirely secularly. The modern spelling is regularised from the Late Latin form. Key roots: koimān (Greek: "to put to sleep"), *ḱey- (Proto-Indo-European: "to lie down, to be lying").