hearse: [14] The ancestor of hearse seems to have been a word in an ancient Italic language meaning ‘wolf’ – Oscan hirpus. The salient feature of wolves being their teeth, the Romans took the word over as hirpex and used it for a ‘large rake, of the sort used for breaking up fields’. It passed via Vulgar Latin *herpica into Old French as herse, and by now had moved another semantic step further away from its original sense ‘wolf’, for, since agricultural harrows in those times were typically toothed triangular frames, the word herse was applied to a triangular frame for holding candles, as used in a church, and particularly as placed over a coffin at funeral services.
This was its meaning when English acquired it, and it only gradually developed via ‘canopy placed over a coffin’ and ‘coffin, bier’ to the modern sense ‘funeral carriage’ (first recorded in the mid-17th century). => rehearse
hearse (n.)
c. 1300 (late 13c. in Anglo-Latin), "flat framework for candles, hung over a coffin," from Old French herse, formerly herce "large rake for breaking up soil, harrow; portcullis," also "large chandelier in a church," from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin hirpicem (nominative hirpex) "harrow," a rustic word, from Oscan hirpus "wolf," supposedly in allusion to its teeth. Or the Oscan word may be related to Latin hirsutus "shaggy, bristly."
The funeral display is so called because it resembled a harrow (hearse in its sense of "portcullis" is not attested in English before 15c.). Sense extended to other temporary frameworks built over dead people, then to "vehicle for carrying a dead person to the grave," a sense first recorded 1640s. For spelling, see head (n.).
雙語例句
1. And then Captain Charles sings, "Don't ever laugh when a hearse goes by or you will be the next to die."
隨後查爾斯船長唱到：“如果你不想下一個死的是你，當靈車走過時絕不要笑。”
來自柯林斯例句
2. The boy remained as dismal as a hearse.
那孩子仍然看上去像口棺材,死氣沉沉.
來自英漢文學 - 湯姆曆險
3. It was a big black battered hearse -- like automobile . There were three men in it.
那是一輛破舊不堪的黑色大車,活象一輛柩車. 車裏坐著三個人.
來自辭典例句
4. I need a hearse at Vera Smith's house.
我需要一輛靈車,到維拉.史密斯的房子.
來自電影對白
5. Until after hearing hearse to go, just sleep again.