Definition of "herse"

herse

/hɜː(ɹ)s/

noun
plural herses
1. A kind of gate or portcullis, having iron bars, like a harrow, studded with iron spikes, hung above gateways so that it may be quickly lowered to impede the advance of an enemy.
  Quotations
  In the south aisle, on a slab raised on four low shafts and covered by an iron herse, is a fine coloured recumbent effigy of a bishop
  1848, Benjamin Webb, Sketches of Continental Ecclesiolgy
2. Obsolete form of hearse (a carriage for the dead)
3. (obsolete) A funeral ceremony.
  Quotations
  Dido, my deare, alas! Dead, and lyeth wrapt in lead. O heavie herse!
  1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Aegloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […]; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890,
verb
third-person singular simple present herses, present participle hersing, simple past and past participle hersed
1. Alternative form of hearse
  Quotations
  The house is hers'd about with a black wood, Which nods with many a heavy-headed tree: Each flower's a pregnant poison, try'd and good; Each herb a plague.
  1646, Richard Crashaw, Sospetto d'Herode
  The Grecians spritefully drew from the darts the corse, And hers'd it, bearing it to fleet.The spelling has been modernized.
  , Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter; The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volumes (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843,
  I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear. O, would she were hers'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin.
  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, [Act III, scene i]

Definition of "herse"

herse

noun

Quotations

Quotations

verb

Quotations