urn

plural urns · alternative obsolete urne

1. A vase with a footed base.

   His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, / And once more join us in the pious urn.

   1700, [John] Dryden, “Canace to Macareus”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   A rustic, digging in the ground by Padua, […]found an urn, or earthen pot, in which there was another urn.

   1648, John Wilkins, Mathematicall Magick. Or, The Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanicall Geometry. […], London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Sa[muel] Gellibrand […], →OCLC

   Mary Fibbs and all her friends start making coughing noises whenever I come near them, and then they all giggle and Mary says Grandfather mixes his cough medicine in the urns on top of the gate posts after dark with his umbrella, and now Jessamy!

   1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 47

2. A metal vessel for serving tea or coffee.
3. A vessel for the ashes or cremains of a deceased person.

   So draw him home to those that mourn ⁠In vain; a favourable speed ⁠Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

4. figurativelyAny place of burial; the grave.

   Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, / Tombless, with no remembrance over them.

   1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

5. RomanhistoricalA measure of capacity for liquids, containing about three gallons and a half, wine measure. It was half the amphora, and four times the congius.
6. biologyA hollow body shaped like an urn, in which the spores of mosses are contained; a spore case; a theca.

present singular third person urns · participle present urning · participle past urned · past urned · alternative obsolete urne

1. transitiveTo place in an urn.

plural URNs

1. InternetabbreviationinitialismInitialism of uniform resource name.