hic jacet

plural hic jacets

1. archaicAn epitaph (gravestone inscription).

   What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, / Among the knightly brasses of the graves, / And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!

   1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, page 133

   2 more examples

   Level with the floor of the middle aisle are brasses of a male and a female figure with a hic jacet inscription denoting that Thomas Rowley, merchant and sheriff, died 33 Jan. 1478 and Margaret his wife, died 1470.

   1872, John Taylor, A Book about Bristol: Historical, Ecclesiastical, and Biographical, from Original Research, page 132

   Presently, as I observed the wretched beings about me more closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies were so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead within.

   1888, Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887, page 458