A Helpful Guide to Key Terms

Burial Sites and Types of Plot

  • Cemetery: A designated and sacred location where loved ones are laid to rest by internment, entombment, or inurnment.
  • Cemetery Plot: A specific area within a cemetery designated for burial.
  • Columbarium: A building designed to house cremated remains.
  • Crypt: An enclosed vault or sealed space for the placement of a coffin, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Crypts are typically found beneath the ground of buildings, cemeteries, or a church.
  • Family Estate:  A larger plot of land that can accommodate multiple graves and may include features such as a family mausoleum, landscaping, and seating areas. It’s a deluxe option used by families who want to have a designated area for all their loved ones to be buried together.
  • Grave:  Typically, a hole dug in the ground, often within a cemetery, in which a deceased person is buried. Graves can be marked by headstones, tombstones, or other markers to identify the deceased.
  • Graveyard: An area for the burial of loved ones that is associated with or near a church.
  • Mausoleum: A building meant to house crypts; these buildings can be either public or private for specific families, as well as outdoor or indoor.
  • Niche: A compartment within a columbarium or a mausoleum in which cremated remains are placed.
  • Scattering Garden: A special place within a cemetery where ashed can be scattered.
  • Sepulcher: A small room typically made of stone or cut into rock where a person is laid to rest.
  • Sarcophagus: A coffin made of stone dating back to ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

Preparation and Care

  • At Need/Immediate Need: Funeral planning that occurs after a person’s death.
  • Embalming: The process of preserving a body to delay decomposition, usually involving the replacement of bodily fluids with chemical preservatives.
  • Endowment or Perpetual Care: A fund created by a percentage of the sale when a cemetery is chosen for the purpose of maintaining the cemetery and parts of the cemetery.
  • Mortuary:  A place where deceased bodies are prepared for burial or cremation. It’s often used interchangeably with the term “funeral home.”
  • Opening and Closing: The process of getting the burial site ready for the interment.
  • Pre-Plan/Pre-Need: Refers to arrangements made in advance for funeral services or related products such as cemetery plots. This means that individuals prepay for their funerals or make specific arrangements before their death, sometimes many years in advance.

Monuments and Markers

  • Bevel Marker: Slanted stones from top to bottom to allow water to run off placed on top of the memorial.
  • Cenotaph: A monument to symbolize an empty tomb to memorialize those lost in war or buried in another part of the world.
  • Family Stone: A memorial marker marking a specific family’s plot. This stone might display names and specific dates of family individuals.
  • Footstone: A memorial marker placed at the foot of the grave typically made from granite or bronze.
  • Foundation/Footing: The bottom concrete base where a monument or stone is placed.
  • Headstone: A memorial marker, like a footstone, placed at the head of the grave typically made from granite or bronze.
  • Monument: A larger version of a headstone or some sort of figure that can range up to ten feet high.
  • Monolith: A large monument typically carved from stone.
  • Obelisk: A grave marker typically tall and slender with a pyramid shape on top, made from stone.
  • Undressed Memorial: An unfinished surface of a stone memorial or marker.

Caskets and Containers

  • Casket: A container traditionally in rectangular form used to bury a loved one, made of materials such as wood, metal, or bamboo.
  • Coffin: A container that is tapered in shape, typically made from wood.
  • Grave Liner: A burial container that protects the casket in the grave, similar to a vault but not sealed.
  • Vault: A sealed receptacle that protects the casket from the weight or change of the earth or work that may be done in the surrounding area by heavy machinery. May also be known as an outer burial container.

Burial and Interment

  • Burial/Interment: The act of burying a loved one.
  • Double Depth Burial: An interment where two deceased individuals are buried within the same space, typically deeper than the traditional 6 feet.
  • Entombment: Placement of a loved one within a crypt or niche; both casketed and cremated remains can be entombed.
  • Exhumation: The formal act of removing the remains of the deceased from a plot.
  • Grave Offering: An item left at a grave in order of remembrance or to honor the deceased.
  • Green Burial: An eco-friendly burial method where the body is not embalmed and is placed in a biodegradable coffin or shroud.
  • Inhumation: The formal act of burial in the ground.
  • Inurnment: Burial of the remains of a cremated person in the ground.

Cremation

  • Cremains: A term used to describe the cremated remains of a deceased person.
  • Cremation: The process of reducing a deceased person’s body to ashes by heat.
  • Crematorium: The place where cremations take place.

Cemetery Terms

  • Grave Depression (Sunken Grave): This happens when the air pockets escape, and the soil settles over time.
  • Grave Fence: A fence usually taller than 12 inches, made of either metal, wood, or stone that surrounds a gravesite.
  • Grave Landscaping: Modifications made to a gravesite to enhance the aesthetics.
  • Layout: The organizational segments of a cemetery such as blocks, estates, and quadrants.
  • Lichgate: The arched gate at the entrance of a cemetery.
  • Orientation: The direction the head of the loved one points when laid to rest. Many cemeteries will have the headstones pointing east due to religious or practical reasons.

Funeral and Memorial Services

  • Committal Service: The part of the burial service when the casket is placed into the grave.
  • Cortege: A formal procession, typically for a funeral, consisting of vehicles or people moving in a line.
  • Direct Burial/Cremation: Occurs shortly after death without a funeral or memorial service.
  • Eulogy: A tribute that praises and commemorates the life of the deceased, usually delivered during a funeral or memorial service.
  • Memorial Donation: A contribution made in memory of the deceased, often to a charity or cause they supported.
  • Memorial Service: A service to honor the deceased, which may be held without the body being present.
  • Obituary: A notice of a person’s death, typically published in a newspaper, that includes a brief biography and details about the funeral service.
  • Pallbearers: Individuals chosen to carry or accompany the casket during a funeral service.
  • Wake: A gathering held before a funeral where people pay their respects to the deceased. It sometimes includes viewing the body.