The Collaborative International Dictionary
funeral home \fu"ner*al home`\, n. An establishment, usually commercial, where the bodies of dead persons are prepared for viewing before burial or cremation; called also funeral parlor, mortuary, funeral chapel and informally, undertaker's. The body may or may not be preserved by embalming before viewing or burial, and in some cases the body is not exposed for viewing, though present in a casket. Often, some form of memorial service is held for the deceased at the funeral home, where friends and relatives may come to pay their respects to the dead, and express condolence to the family. The work of preparation of the body and many other arrangements related to the funeral and burial are carried out by an undertaker or mortician who manages the funeral home.
WordNet
n. a mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects [syn: funeral home, funeral parlor, funeral parlour, funeral church, funeral-residence]
Usage examples of "funeral chapel".
An hour later, Kitty was pulling into the circular brick drive in front of the funeral chapel--a whitecolumned, neoclassical affectation plunked like a scaleddown antebellum mansion in the stucco heart of old Miramonte.
Four days after my encounter in the funeral chapel basement, I was back home.
Here, the third face of the funeral chapel held a statue of the Sister in all her majesty as Queen of the Underworld: snake-headed scepter, skirt of thighbones, and necklace of human skulls.
She lay for a day in Mullers Funeral Chapel in an ebony and silver casket, her lean and severe profile made even more ascetic by the four large candles set at the four corners of the casket.
She had seen him in the funeral chapel with a young girl whose face had been swollen with weeping.
People were coming sedately down the walk from the funeral chapel to the corner and getting into their cars.
The room beyond was large and square and sunken and cool and had the restful atmosphere of a funeral chapel and something of the same smell.
Farrell stood with Julie and a couple of Grant's muttering art department colleagues, watching as the plumes, hennins, capes, kirtles, tabards, gipons, mantuas, roquelaures, and pelerines flashed through the waxy air of the funeral chapel and swept bowing before the coffin.