Definition of "obituary"

[N]ot one in fifty of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast?

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Affidavit”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 228

The newspaper came in, as usual, after breakfast. I looked it over, and discovered this memorable entry, among the obituary announcements of the day:— "On the 29th inst., at Brighton, Michael Vanstone, Esq., formerly of Zurich, aged 77."

1862, [William] Wilkie Collins, “VIII. Chronicle for April and May.”, in No Name. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., […], between the scenes (Chronicle of Events: Preserved in Captain Wragge’s Despatch Box), page 21

You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?"

2001 September 13, Marc Klein, Serendipity, spoken by Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven)

Obituary editors are confronted daily with the need to make delicate hermeneutic interpretations of the social meaning of individuals' deaths and to express these powerfully to their readership. […] [I draw] attention to a discrepancy that appears to exist between, on the one hand, the editors' subjective avowals about the openness of the obituary columns and, on the other hand, the objectively highly restricted origins and trajectories of the obituary subjects.

2007, Bridget Fowler, “The Social Value of Death: The Microworld of the Editors”, in The Obituary as Collective Memory (Routledge Advances in Sociology; 27), New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, part I (Theoretical, Historical and Quantitative Studies of the Obituary), page 105

Mouths were agape on the announcement of England's starting lineup, the return of Keira Walsh appearing miraculous 10 days after she left the pitch on a stretcher in agony. Walsh’s World Cup obituaries were written; she was England's most valuable player, irreplaceable.

2023 August 7, Suzanne Wrack, “England beat Nigeria on penalties to reach Women’s World Cup quarter-finals”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 2023-08-22