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Tomb

Life And Death
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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 structure or chamber for burying the dead. It often symbolizes final rest, memory, confinement, or monumental loss.

Detailed Definition
A tomb is a burial place designed to contain and commemorate the dead, ranging from a simple grave chamber to an elaborate monument. In poetry, tombs can stand for silence, permanence, imprisonment, or the desire to preserve a name against time. Their inscriptions and sealed doors invite reflection on what can be known of the dead. A tomb may also become a metaphor for the body, the mind, or a culture buried beneath history.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Adonais,” the tomb becomes part of the elegy’s larger meditation on memory and immortality; Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” uses tombs and gravestones to ask whose lives are remembered; A poet might write, “The tomb held no answer, / only the weather’s handwriting,” using the tomb as a symbol of silence and endurance; A tomb can be metaphorical, as in “The locked archive became a tomb for her unfinished songs”
Additional Notes
A tomb may represent burial and finality, but also commemoration and endurance. Its stone, darkness, enclosure, or inscription can emphasize confinement, silence, memory, or resistance to forgetting.
Also Known As
Grave Sepulchre Sepulcher Burial Vault casket crypt
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