The Collaborative International Dictionary
Funeral \Fu"ner*al\, a. [LL. funeralis. See Funeral, n.]
Pertaining to a funeral; used at the interment of the dead;
as, funeral rites, honors, or ceremonies.
--Shak.
Funeral pile or Funeral pyre, a structure of combustible
material, upon which a dead body is placed to be reduced
to ashes, as part of a funeral rite; a pyre. --
Fu"ner*al*ly, adv. [Obs.]
--Sir T. Browne.
Usage examples of "funeral pile".
We are told, that in the sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design.
The saddles and rich furniture of the cavalry were collected, by his order, into a funeral pile.
He escaped from thence with only seven horsemen, and made his last stand in a third capital, till at length the hopeless monarch, protesting his innocence and accusing his fortune, ascended a funeral pile, and gave orders, that, as soon as he had stabbed himself, the fire should be kindled by his attendants.
He was a stranger from Ephesus, and, as none of his kindred were at hand, Clitus, as his nearest friend, had the sad duty assigned to him of putting the torch to the funeral pile on which the body was to be consumed, and of gathering the ashes for the urn which was to be placed in the family sepulchre at Ephesus.