Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Cenotaph
/ˈsɛnətɑːf/noun
A monument to people buried elsewhere or never recovered.
The Greek roots
κενός
kenós
empty
τάφος
táphos
tomb, burial
Literally: “empty tomb”
The story of the word
Κενοτάφιον was already a technical term in Greek for a tomb built where the body is not. Lutyens put up a temporary plaster version in Whitehall for the 1919 victory parade, the public refused to let it go, and the stone Cenotaph of 1920 fixed the modern sense of a national war memorial. The κενός in it also gives kenosis, the self-emptying of Christ in Philippians 2.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
kenosisepitaphtaphonomy
In a sentence
Wreaths were laid at the cenotaph a few minutes before eleven.