From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmortuarymor‧tu‧a‧ry1 /ˈmɔːtʃuəri $ ˈmɔːrtʃueri/ noun (plural mortuaries) [countable] 1 British EnglishMX a building or room, for example in a hospital, where dead bodies are kept before they are buried or cremated SYN morgue2 American EnglishMX the place where a body is kept before a funeral and where the funeral is sometimes held
Examples from the Corpus
mortuary• The next day she located his body at a mortuary.• Most of those are autopsied and then released to a mortuary in a relatively short period of time.• The body was taken to the city mortuary.• The remains of a few victims were taken to a makeshift mortuary in a hangar at Schiphol.• They also send a hearse to carry the body to the funeral home or mortuary.• If the person dies in hospital the family will need to collect the body from the mortuary.• I joined her in the mortuary.• An earlier announcement named the wrong mortuary.mortuarymortuary2 adjective [only before noun] formalMX connected with death or funerals a mortuary urnExamples from the Corpus
mortuary• Scathach had entered the mortuary house.• There are a number of cemeteries where the details of the mortuary ritual varies considerably.• A funeral director's licence needed a degree and two year's mortuary service following a one-year apprenticeship.• His body rested in his tomb and his cult was celebrated in his mortuary temple.• a mortuary urnOrigin mortuary1 (1300-1400) Medieval Latin mortuarium, from Latin mortuus “dead” 