24/01/2023
Cemeteries are often said to be peaceful places for walking, thinking, and of course, grieving. But when people say graveyard, it’s often considered much creepier.
Often used synonymously, the two words actually mean different things. Let’s take a step back through time to the 7th Century, when burials were predominantly organised by the Christian Church. Burying the dead was only allowed on lands owned by the church, and most often surrounding the church. These church yards became full with graves and more colloquially ended up referred to as grave yards, which comes from the Proto- Germanic word, groban, which means “to dig”.
Fast forward to the 18th Century, when the growing population of Europe needed more land to bury their dead. Independent graveyards started to be developed outside of the church as the traditional graveyards no longer had capacity to house the dead.
Looking for a new word to name these larger graveyards, the Old French “cimetiere” was coined, which later became known in English as “cemetery”. The Old French meant “graveyard” and originated from the Greek word “kometerion”, which ultimately means “sleeping place”.
