Home › Glossary › Letter M

mourners

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A noun referring to individuals who express sorrow, lamentation, and grief for a deceased person, especially during funeral rites.

Detailed Definition
Mourners are those who attend or participate in grief after a death, often at a funeral or wake. Dickinson uses the word in a social scene where the house seems to gather the people connected to the death.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mourners are people who grieve, especially those attending a funeral; “And he owned all the mourners now” suggests grief becoming a form of possession; The mourners stood in rain beside the fresh earth; In elegy, mourners may include family, strangers, animals, or a whole damaged landscape
Additional Notes
Although the word is understandable from context, it is a more formal funeral-related term that may prompt readers to pause in this passage.; Found in the poem, There's been a death in the opposite house by Emily Dickinson
Also Known As
grievers lamenters sorrowful souls mournful hearts
Skip to main content