obsequy

ob•se•quy (OB-si-kwee)  n
usually plural, obsequies

Definition:
a funeral rite or ceremony
Origin:
late 14c., from L. obsequium "compliance, dutiful service," from obsequi "to accommodate oneself to the will of another," from ob "after" + sequi "follow"

Related:
Synonyms: eulogy, funeral rite, funeral service
Related Words: obsequious

Sentence Examples:
• This visit had probably no other motive than to make sure that this prince was really alive, he having been reputed dead of the plague for over thirty years, and his obsequies having been celebrated in presence of an entire army. - Celebrated Crimes, Alexandre Dumas

• It will be recalled without effort—possibly, indeed, without interest—that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily agreed. -The Mother, Norman Duncan

• Now there were no wars at that time so far as was known in Spain, but that old lord's eldest son, regarding those last words of his father as a commandment, determined then and there in that dim, vast chamber to gird his legacy to him and seek for the wars, wherever the wars might be, so soon as the obsequies of the sepulture were ended. -Don Rodriguez, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett


Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

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