A graveyard is a place where people are buried. It can also be referred to as a cemetery or tombyard.
Graveyards are usually located on church property. They are often older and unkempt.
Cemeteries are generally larger than churchyards, and they tend to be more well maintained. They are also usually fenced in.
Definition
The graveyard is a place where people are buried. It is often associated with a church and is sometimes called a churchyard. People also use the term cemetery to refer to a burial ground that is not affiliated with a church.
In the early days of town planning, a churchyard was always located at the center of a settlement nucleus. This was the official sacred space, and next to it was the common graveyard.
Mourners who could afford the services of a stonemason would have their family headstones carved with inscriptions and symbols, competing to make theirs more impressive than those of other families in the graveyard.
In the game of Magic, a player’s graveyard is a face-up pile that contains any countered, discarded, destroyed, or sacrificed cards as well as instants and sorcey spells that have finished resolving. Players cannot change the order of their own graveyards, but can move cards between them. Sailors sometimes call their late shifts the graveyard shift because of the eerie silence that prevails during those hours.
Origin
The word graveyard is derived from the Latin word coemeterium, which itself is derived from Greek koimeterion, meaning “a place for sleeping.” It refers to a yard that contains the graves of dead people.
Traditionally, most graveyards were associated with churches and located on church grounds. This limited their size and made them more restrictive as far as who could be buried there. In time, this changed and non-church-associated graveyards were created.
Today, the terms cemetery and graveyard are often used interchangeably. This is especially true if you’re talking about landscaped, non-church-associated cemeteries. Another use of the term is in some trading card games, where it refers to a pile that cards go to when they’re discarded or used up. While this isn’t particularly spooky, it does highlight that language is a lot more fluid than we think. This is why it’s so important to always verify the origin of phrases you’re hearing from others.
Etymology
There is a slight difference between graveyard and cemetery, though they are often used interchangeably. Graveyard is the older of the two terms, and it refers to a burial ground that adjoins a church. When this area became too full, new sites for burying people appeared that were not affiliated with churches. These new sites were called cemeteries.
The word cemetery is derived from the Latin word coemeterium, which itself comes from the Greek term koimeterion, meaning a place to sleep. It is interesting to note that the root of this word is also related to the word grave, which derives from a proto-Germanic word meaning “to dig”.
As with any area that contains a large number of dead people, rumors and superstitions are abundant in and around a graveyard. There are many stories involving the use of graveyards as an altar for black magic ceremonies, alleged grave-robbing of gold teeth and jewelry, thrilling sex encounters, and other clandestine activities.
Meaning
A graveyard is a place where dead people are buried. It is typically located on church grounds, but it can also be independent.
It is not uncommon for a graveyard to be associated with superstition and legend, such as places where witches gather bones and skulls for their rituals. These activities usually take place at night and often involve devil worshipping, grave-robbing (gold teeth are preferred), or thrilling sex encounters.
Another use of graveyard is in the phrase “graveyard shift.” This refers to working the late shift. Sailors often worked late into the night in the 1700s, and this was known as the graveyard watch. It is not believed to be related to the fact that sailors were buried in graveyards, but more likely due to the fact that there was silence and darkness at nighttime. It was also considered a dangerous time to work.