Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of lych-gate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a roofed gate to a churchyard, formerly used as a temporary shelter for the bier during funerals

Etymologies

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Examples

  • A minute later her assumption was confirmed, as the middle-aged lady, followed by the young, pretty one, came quickly through the lichgate and entered the car.

    The Splendid Folly Margaret Pedler

  • A steep slope leads up to the little church, which stands back, and a tiny avenue of limes leads up to it from the lichgate.

    Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Rosalind Northcote

  • Mrs. Mowbray and all her works -- there were six of the latter, ranging from a lanky girl of twelve to a fat baby still in the perambulator stage -- made her way out of the churchyard and stood waiting by the beautiful old lichgate, which, equally with the thirteenth century window, was a source of pride and satisfaction to the good folk of

    The Splendid Folly Margaret Pedler

  • Hidden from his sight by an intervening yew tree, she watched him coming down the church path, conscious of a somewhat pleasurable sense of anticipation, and when he had passed under the lichgate and, turning to the left, came face to face with her, she bowed and smiled, holding out her hand.

    The Splendid Folly Margaret Pedler

  • Hastily she brushed away the gathering tears as the carriage stopped abruptly with a jingle of harness at the lichgate.

    The Shadow of the East

  • This cross has a very well preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy.

    Yorkshire Gordon Home 1923

  • To the west of Cooling Castle, beyond wide fields -- turnips or cabbages -- of the colour of dark-green jade, the Church of Cliffe, with its lichgate, standing out boldly from its ridge of chalk, overlooks a straggling village of old and weather-boarded houses.

    Dickens-Land E. W. Haslehust 1907

  • It was seldom that the coach from Wildairs Hall drew up before the lichgate, but upon rare Sunday mornings Mistress Wimpole and her two charges contrived, if Sir Jeoffry was not in an ill-humor and the coachman was complaisant, to be driven to service.

    A Lady of Quality 1896

  • If we have Lichfield and lichgate, we may have lichworm too.

    Weird Tales from Northern Seas Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie 1870

  • I will instance only lich, ‘a dead carcase, whence lichwake, the time or act of watching by the dead; lichgate, the gate through which the dead are carried to the grave; Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians.

    On Dictionaries 1969

Comments

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  • "We had just met an old lady coming through the lichgate carrying a bunch of flowers.

    'Hello, Irreverend!' she replied jovially, then looked at me and said in a hoarse whisper: 'Is this your girlfriend?'"

    - Jasper Fforde, 'The Eyre Affair'.

    October 27, 2008

  • See also lych gate.

    October 27, 2008