Acknowledgement Cards: The cards that are sent to friends and relatives thanking them for their kindness shown to the family of the deceased.

After Service Call: A call made by the funeral director or assistant to the surviving relatives after the funeral services.

Altar: An elevated place or structure on which religious rites are performed.

Anatomical Donation: A Gift of one’s body or organs for transplantation or medical research and education.

Anticipatory Grief: A syndrome characterized by grief in anticipation of death or loss; the actual death affirms the pre-knowledge.

Apprentice: Someone learning the funeral business under the supervision of a licensed director.

Arrangement Form: A printed form the funeral director uses in planning the details of a funeral service with the family of the deceased.

Arrangement Room: A private room in the funeral home used specifically for the funeral director and the family to make funeral and financial arrangements.

Autopsy: A postmortem examination to determine the cause of death.

Backhoe: Heavy ground moving equipment used to dig the grave and close it.

Bereaved: The immediate family of the deceased.  Deprived of something valuable or beloved.

Bereavement: The act of grieving loss.  The event of producing acute denial and dispossession due to death of a loved one.

Bier: A casket support, on wheels or stationary.

Burial Certificate (Burial Permit): A legal form issued by local government authorizing disposition of the deceased human body.

Burial Container: A burial container is a lined and sealed outer receptacle that houses the casket or urn. It protects the casket or urn from the weight of the earth and heavy maintenance equipment that will pass over the grave. It also helps resist water and preserves the beauty of the cemetery or memorial park by preventing the ground from settling. Most cemeteries require the use of a burial container or vault for in ground burial and in ground cremation.

Burial Insurance: Insurance used specifically to provide for funeral expenses.

Burial Rights or Interment Rights, Entombment Rights, Inurnment Rights: Rights to Cemetery or Memorial Park Property for final disposition of human remains.  When a consumer purchases burial property, they are not purchasing the property itself.  They are purchasing the “rights” to use the property for human remains within the limits of the cemetery by-laws.

Burial Rites: Those religious ceremonies and practices conducted for honoring the deceased.

Burial Vault: Most cemeteries require the use of a burial container or vault for in ground burial and in ground cremation.  The vault is usually constructed of concrete products reinforced with steel to protect the urn or casket and helps to maintain the garden within the cemetery to prevent sinking or uneven ground.  Depending on quality of construction and price, some vaults have identification of the deceased in case of flooding or natural disaster.  Vault lids are glued to the base for added protection. Vaults may or may not be personalized.

Burial: The process of placing the body or cremated remains of a deceased in a grave.

Canopy: The portable awning that is used to shelter the gravesite at the time of the burial service.  Also called the tent.

Casket Bearer: A person who carries the casket and/or attends it at the funeral service and at the graveside service.  Also pall bearer.

Casket Coach (Funeral Coach): The vehicle used to transport the casket from place to place; a hearse.

Casket Selection Room: The room in the funeral home for the display and sale of caskets.

Casket Veil: A sheer net that is placed over the body in an open casket.

Casket: A case in which the human remains are placed for protection, practical utility, and display.  A container designed for holding human remains. Seldom called “coffins” in the funeral business.

Catacombs: Underground burial chambers.

Catafalque: The raised structure on which a casket is placed during a wake; a bier.

Celebrant: A funeral celebrant is trained and certified to meet the needs of families during their time of loss by organizing and conducting personalized funeral services. They offer families a service that strongly reflects the individual’s life that has died.

Cemetery: An area of ground set aside and dedicated for the final disposition of deceased human bodies.

Ceremony: Similar to ritual but it may or may not have symbolic content.

Certified Copy of Death Certificate: A legal copy of the original death certificate.

Chanting: The singing of the sacramental service.

Chapel: A building or designated area of a building in which services are conducted.

Chaplain: An ecclesiastic serving the chapel of the institution, military unit, fraternal organization, etc.

Christian Burial Permit (Priestly Lines, Priest Letter, Christian Burial Certificate): A letter from a priest stating the eligibility of the deceased for funeral rites according to the laws of the Roman Catholic Church.

Coffin: Body shaped burial receptacle.

Columbarium: A structure, room, or space in a mausoleum or other building containing niches or recesses used to contain cremated remains.

Committal Service: That portion of the funeral that is conducted at the place of inter­ment or other location of disposition of deceased human bodies.

Consecrated Ground: Ground that has been blessed by a priest or minister for burial purposes.

Coroner: A public officer whose main function is to investigate by inquest any death that is thought to be of other than natural causes. In addition, he may be called upon when there is no doctor in attendance at the time of death.

Corpse: The body of a deceased human being.

Cortege: A funeral procession.

Cremains: Human remains that have been reduced to bone fragments in a specially designed retort.

Cremate: The reduction of the deceased human body to inorganic bone fragments in a specially designed retort.

Cremation Permit: A permit given by the local government that allows for the cremation of the deceased.

Cremation Urn: A container made of any acceptable material to hold the cremated remains of the deceased.  Usually placed in an niche, ground space or columbaria.

Cross Bearer: One who carries or attends the cross during a funeral, i.e. crucifer.

Crypt: A chamber in a mausoleum, of sufficient size, generally used to contain the casketed remains of a deceased person.

Death Certificates: A legal document, signed by a coroner or other medical health professional certifying the death of an individual. The death certificate is used for many legal processes pertaining to death.

Death Notice: A paid classified notification of the death of a person, including the family names and brief details of the service.  An obituary contains personal details about the deceased.

Death: The cessation of physical life.

Deceased: One in whom all physical life has ceased; the deceased.

Direct Cremation: A very simple and inexpensive method of cremation without service, viewing, funeral, or embalming involved.  Usually chosen when there are no survivors.

Direct Interment: A very simple and inexpensive method of burial without funeral, service, viewing, or embalming. Usually chosen when there are no survivors.

Dirge: A sad, mournful song; a song of lament.

Disinter: To remove from the grave or tomb.

Door Badge: Flowers or a wreath hung on a door of a business to signify a death.

Drawing Room: A service room in the funeral home that is informal.

Effigy: A likeness or representation of a person.

Elegy: A mournful song or poem of lamentation for the deceased.

Embalm: To put balm into; disinfection, preservation, and restoration.

Embalmer: A person licensed by a state or states who preserves the deceased body and restores it to as lifelike and natural an appearance as possible.

Embalming: The process of sanitizing and preserving the body and to also enhance the appearance of a body disfigured by traumatic death or illness.

Endowment: Permanent funds or a source of income designated to cover certain expenses.

Entombment Fees: Fees charged by cemetery to open the mausoleum crypt and to close it. The fees are associated with the equipment, labor, insurance, and services necessary to open the grave and close the grave.

Entombment: Placing the remains of a deceased human in a vault, tomb, or crypt.

Epitaph: A commemorative inscription on a monument or tomb.

Escort: To accompany, as a leader of the procession or guardian of the group.

Eulogy: An oration praising an individual, usually after death.

Exhumation: An act of disinterring a deceased human body.

Family Room: The room in the funeral home reserved for use by the family only. It usually adjoins the chapel.

Family Service: Services provided to surviving family members to help them cope with their grief.  Support may be given through books, tapes, visits, grief programs and other forms of aftercare depending on the family needs.

Final Disposition: Refers to any manner in which remains are permanently handled.  Burial, entombment, inurnment, etc.

Final Rites: This refers to the entire funeral service.

First Call Car: The car used for the transportation of the unjacketed body of the deceased from the place of death to the mortuary.

Flower Car: The car used to transport the flowers from the place of service to the place of final disposition.

Flower Room: The room in the funeral home where the flowers are received and kept until the service.

Funeral Arrangements: The term applied to the completing of the service and financial details of the funeral.

Funeral Director/Mortician: Certified and trained professional who prepares, arranges and supervises human remains for burial or cremation and maintains a funeral home and counsels and assists survivors.

Funeral Home (Mortuary): The building in which the body of the deceased is prepared for final disposition, where the service is held, and where funeral merchandise is sold.

Funeral Program (Service, Folder, Memorial Folder): The program providing information about the deceased and the funeral service. It is given to all attending the funeral.

Funeral Rite: An all-inclusive term used to encompass all funeral and/or memorial services.

Funeral Service or Ceremony: By funeral, we mean the post-death activities that may include any type of meaningful ceremony to commemorate the life of the deceased.

Funeral Spray: A large bouquet (25 or more) of cut flowers sent to the residence or the funeral home as a tribute to the deceased.

Garden Crypt: A mausoleum with no inside hall and the name plates of the deceased are on the outside of the building.

Grave Covering: The covering of artificial grass that is placed over the exposed earth around the grave.

Grave Liner: A vault or outer enclosure that is placed in the grave to cover the casket and support the earth above it. There are no bottoms to grave liners.

Grave Marker: An identifying block, usually of metal or stone, on which is engraved the name, date, place of death of the deceased, and marks the location of that particular grave.

Grave: An excavation for interring the deceased; a burial place.

Green Burial: Funeral services and products using environmental friendly materials and without chemical preservation.

Grief: An emotion in which a person tries to disengage himself from the relationship that has existed and to reinvest his emotions in new and productive directions for the health and welfare of his future life in society; sorrow; anguish.

Hearse: The term used for the funeral coach.

Honorarium: An unsolicited gift; usually an honorary payment for gratuitous or professional service.

Honorary Casket Bearers (Honorary Pallbearers): Friends or members of an organization or group who act as an escort or honor guard for the deceased. They do not carry the casket.

Immediate Disposition: Any disposition of a deceased human body that is devoid of any form of funeral rite at the time of disposition.

Indigent: One who lacks the necessities of life; needy, poor.

Informant: One who supplies the vital statistic information concerning the deceased.

Inhume: To bury.

Inquest: An official inquiry or examination to determine the cause of death.

Inter: To bury, or inhume in the ground.

Interment Fees or Opening & Closing: In addition to the cost of burial lots or spaces, cemeteries charge interment fees for ground burial, entombment fees for mausoleum entombment, and inurnment fees to handle the final disposition of a cremation urn.   Fees normally collected by cemetery or funeral provider at the time of death – due prior to final disposition. Fees are associated with the equipment, labor, insurance, and services necessary to open the grave and close the grave.

Interment: The act of placing the deceased human body in a space for final disposition.

Inurnment Fees: Fees charged by the cemetery to open and close the grave where an urn will be buried. Fees charged by the cemetery to open and close a niche space in a mausoleum or columbarium for housing the cremation urn. The fees are associated with the equipment, labor, insurance, and services necessary to open the grave and close the grave.

Inurnment: The act of placing the remains of a cremation in an urn.

Kin: All of one’s relatives of blood relationship (legally, not the surviving spouse).

Lawn Crypt or Abbey Crypt: An underground mausoleum.  Double depth vaults are installed upon a foundation of gravel with a drainage system.  Sod is placed on the top of the crypts area and memorials are installed.  Usually several hundred, lawn crypts units are placed side by side to create a lawn crypt or abbey garden. Purchaser receives rights to one double depth space, a double depth vault, and a memorial typically.

Lectern: A ready desk with a slanted top from which a religious service, lecture or speech is delivered.

Limousine: A large passenger vehicle seating three or more in a section that is separated from the chauffeur.

Lobby (Vestibule): An entryway to a funeral home or church.

Lot: A space set aside in a cemetery for several grave spaces, i.e., plot.

Lowering Device: The mechanical device used for lowering the casket into the grave.

Mass: A service celebrating the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church.

Mausoleum: A building containing several crypts or vaults for entombment.

Medical Examiner: Government official who is usually appointed and has a thorough medical knowledge whose function is to perform autopsies on deceased typically as a result from crime, violence, suicide, etc., and investigate circumstances of death.

Memorial Folder: The written program that is distributed to the funeral attendees giving information about the deceased and the funeral arrangements.

Memorial Marker, Tombstone: Memorials come in a variety of sizes and shapes normally covering one or two graves.  Usually made of bronze or granite. Is usually installed on a concrete or granite base with or without a vase. Marble Memorials – A beautiful natural material used for statues and other memorialization.  It is softer and more difficult to maintain than granite or bronze. Upright Memorials – Used in cemeteries only and typically not in memorial parks. Granite Memorials – A hard, natural material used for memorials of all types.  Known for beauty, easy maintenance, and longevity.

Memorial Park: These are cemeteries without tombstones: parks and gardens where bronze memorials are placed level with the ground to blend with the beauty of the landscape. They often feature expansive lawns with a variety of trees, flowering beds and gardens, as well as fountains, sculpture or memorial architecture. A cemetery with flush markers and sections dedicated in memorial. Uprightmarkers and stones are not allowed.

Memorial Service: Funeral rites without the body present.

Merchandise & Service Trust Fund: A fund established by a cemetery or memorial park usually regulated by the State for the purpose of guaranteeing delivery of preplanned funeral and cemetery merchandise and/or services.  Interest accrues on the money deposited, which often provides for the increase in costs from the time the arrangement is made until it is delivered.

Monument: A structure of stone or metal commemorating the life, deeds, or career of a deceased person.

Morgue: Municipally operated places where the bodies of deceased people are held awaiting identification or until burial arrangements are finalized.

Mortician: A funeral director and/or embalmer.

Mourner: Someone present at the funeral out of respect or affection for the deceased.

Mourning: An adjustment process that expresses grief and reorganizes life after a loss.

Music Room: The room in the funeral home from which the musicians perform or where they wait before their participation in the service.

National Cemetery: A cemetery created and maintained by an act of Congress for the sole purpose of burial of United States military veterans.

Nee: The name with which a person is born. It is used to indicate the maiden name of a married woman.

Niche: A recess in a columbarium used for the permanent placing of cremated remains.

Non-Traditional Funeral Rite: Those funeral rites that deviate from the normal or prescribed circumstances of established custom.

Obituary: A news item concerning the death of a person, usually containing a biographical sketch. The obituary is a paid memorial advertisement, usually written by family members or friends, perhaps with assistance from a funeral home.

Obsequies: Funeral rites or burial ceremonies.

Officiant: One who conducts a religious service or ceremony.

Opening and Closing: These terms refer to the process of opening and closing the grave before and after the burial.

Pall Bearer: Pall was the blanket covering most caskets.  A veterans pall is an American flag. Individuals (close family members in most cases who volunteer or others who are hired) who are asked to carry the casket.

Pall: A decorative cloth with religious significance.

Pastor: A Christian minister having spiritual charge of members of a congregation or parish.

Perpetual Care: An arrangement made by the cemetery whereby funds are set aside, the income of which is used to maintain the cemetery plot indefinitely.

Podium: An elevated platform, stage.

Postlude: Music played at the close of a service.

Post-Mortem: After death.

Potter’s Field: A burial ground for unknown people, strangers, indigents.

Preplanned Funeral: Arrangements that have been completed prior to need.

Prelude: Music played prior to a service.

Preparation Room: The room in the funeral home for embalming.

Preparation, Clothing: Preparation is usually chosen out of respect for the deceased.  The body is bathed, cleaned, and groomed.  Hair and makeup is done usually with the input of the closest family member or with a photo so that the deceased appears most natural after grooming.  Clothes may be chosen by the family or purchased by the family based on their situation.

Prie-Dieu: A low rail for kneeling in prayer.

Processional: The movement, in an orderly fashion, at the beginning of a service.

Professional Service: Term used to include all the activities that are done by funeral directors/embalmers in the service of their profession.

Rabbi: A teacher and leader of the Jewish faith.

Receiving Vault: A structure designed for the temporary storage of bodies that will not be immediately interred.

Reception Room: The area in the funeral home in which guests and callers are received.

Recessional: A recession from a church at the end of the service.

Registry: The book containing the list of those who attended the funeral.

Remains: The preferred term used to describe the body of a deceased.

Repose: To lay to rest.

Reposing Room (Slumber Room, Visitation Room): Room in the funeral home in which the embalmed body lies in state until the time of the service. This is private and available to the family.

Restorative Art: The art of reconstructing or recreating the body of the deceased to be natural and lifelike in form and color.

Resurrection: The act of rising from the dead or returning to life.

Retort: The burning chamber in a crematory.

Rites: The customary or prescribed form for conducting a religious ceremony.

Ritual: A kind of instrumental action; but also expressional – that is, it is charged with symbolic content expressing, among other things, the attitudes of the participants and possible onlookers (passive participants) who may be regarded as co-beneficiaries.

Rosary Beads: Beads and crucifix used as an aid in the recitation of prayers.

Rosary Prayers: Prayers recited at a rosary service.

Rosary Service: A prayer service in the Roman Catholic Church for the repose of the deceased’s soul.

Sect: A group of persons distinguished by peculiarities of faith and practice from other groups adhering to the same general faith and/or practice.

Section: A large division of a cemetery that is divided into 300 to 3,000 lots for gravesites.

Service Equipment: The physical equipment used in the rendering of the service.

Service Room: The room in which the funeral service is conducted.

Sexton: One who is in charge of the cemetery; the caretaker of a church.

Social Security Administration: A branch of the Federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that provides benefits for retirement, survivors’ insurance, disability, health insurance, and death benefits.

State (As in Lie in State): To be placed on public view so that the family and friends can pay tribute to and honor the deceased.

Stillborn: An infant deceased at birth.

Stretcher: A cot; a canvas bed used for transporting disabled or deceased persons.

Survivors: People outliving deceased, particularly family members.

Tomb: A general term designating those places suitable for the reception of a deceased human body.

Trade Embalmer: Licensed embalmer not employed by a specific funeral home, but provides services to multiple homes.

Traditional Funeral Rites: Those funeral rites that follow a prescribed ritual or ceremony that may be dictated by either religious beliefs or social customs.

Transfer Case: A reusable, sealed case used for the shipping of the deceased.

Transient: Lasting only a short time.

Transit Permit: The legal document that allows for the transportation and/or disposition of deceased human bodies.

Transportation Papers: Documents, as prescribed by law, necessary for transporting deceased human bodies by common carrier.

Trisagion: In the Greek Orthodox religion, this is three short services

Trust Fund: Property or money that is held in trust for the benefit of named beneficiaries.

Undertaker: A term used to refer to a mortician, funeral director, or embalmer. The term is no longer used.

Urn: The container for holding the cremains.

Vault: A burial vault is a lined and sealed outer receptacle that houses the casket. It protects the casket from the weight of the earth and heavy maintenance equipment that will pass over the grave. It also helps resist water and preserves the beauty of the cemetery or memorial park by preventing the ground from settling.

Veterans Form DD-214 or Military Discharge: Veterans Discharge Paper from United States Government.  To obtain the benefits from the US Government for a veteran, the survivor must have a copy of the deceased’s DD-214.

Viewing: Part of many cultural and ethnic traditions. Many grief specialists believe that viewing aids the grief process by helping the bereaved recognize the reality of death. .

Vigil: In Roman Catholicism, a service held on the eve of the funeral service.

Visitation: The visiting, prior to the funeral service, of friends and family to the funeral home and/or the family residence to pay respects to the deceased.

Wake: A watch kept over the deceased before the burial.

Welfare Case: A case that involves a family unable to pay for the services; a charity case.

Widow: A woman who has lost a spouse through death.

Widower: A man who has lost a spouse through death.

Will: The written document in which a person described the details for the distribution of his/her property after his/her death.