• (British) IPA: /hɜːs/
• (America) IPA: /hɜɹs/, [hɝs]

hearse (plural hearses)

1. A hind (female deer) in the second year of her age.
2. A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.
3. A grave, coffin, tomb, or sepulchral monument.
   • 1621, Ben Jonson, Epitath to Mary Herbert

     underneath this sable hearse

   • Beside the hearse a fruitful palm tree grows.

   • who lies beneath this sculptured hearse

4. A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.
   • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.

5. A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.

• Italian: cerbiatta, cerva

• Italian: baldacchino, catafalco

• Italian: cataletto
• Russian: катафа́лк

• French: corbillard
• German: Leichenwagen
• Italian: carro funebre, carrozza funeraria
• Portuguese: rabecão, carro fúnebre
• Russian: катафа́лк
• Spanish: coche fúnebre, carroza

hearse (hearses, present participle hearsing; past and past participle hearsed)

1. (dated) To enclose in a hearse; to entomb.
   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene 1

     I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!