cenotaph词源

英文词源

cenotaph

cenotaph: [17] A cenotaph is literally an ‘empty tomb’: the word comes, via French and Latin, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos ‘empty’ and taphos ‘tomb’. The idea behind the name is that someone who had been killed far away from his or her home (for instance, in battle), and whose body could not be brought back, should be commemorated by a symbolic tomb.

cenotaph (n.)

c. 1600, from French cénotaphe (16c.), from Latin cenotaphium, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos "empty" (see keno-) + taphos "tomb, burial, funeral," from PIE root *dhembh- "to bury."