Death care practices and funeral rituals have been around for thousands of years, so it is no surprise that there is an entire lexicon of terms related to these landscapes. From hospice care and MAID, to alkaline hydrolysis and sky burial, and disinterment and survivor guilt, there are a lot of phrases, titles, and acronyms for each branch of end of life and death care.
The language of death care sprawls through a spectrum of realms: the medical side of end-of-life care, such as hospice and Medical Aid in Dying (MAID); the legal and ethical choices people face, like Repatriation and Do Not Resuscitate orders; the many methods of body disposition, from green burial, sky burial, and cremation to alternatives such as alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction; the emotional and psychological experiences that come with loss, such as anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief, and survivor guilt; and the rituals and gatherings that help us honor and remember lost loved ones and community members, like memorial services and funerals.
Many of these practices and rituals stretch back millennia. Green burial has been a global practice for thousands of years and constituted as ‘burial’ long before options like embalming came onto the scene. The funeral pyre, as another example, is one of the oldest known methods of cremation. Even keeping cremains in an urn, known as inurnment, remains a common practice to this day. And that’s only a drop in the ocean! There are a manifold of phrases, roles, and terms that fall under the many branches of end-of-life and death care, each denoting a unique weight and meaning.
Whether you’re navigating this vast landscape for the first time or looking to better understand the options available, knowing the terminology and rhetoric can be a generative first step.
Death Care and Funerary Key terms
Advance care plan: A plan one makes in advance for their care at the end of their life.
Advance Directive: The legal paperwork that allows a person to state in advance the medical care the person would accept or refuse if they lost the ability to give consent.
Advocate: A person who supports someone who is dying by ensuring their personal wishes are observed and carried out. This can be a family member or friend, or a professional.
Alkaline hydrolysis: An alternative to cremation, a process for the disposal of human and animal remains using alkaline, water, and heat.
Anticipatory Grief: Grief that starts before an expected loss, such when a loved one or yourself receives a terminal diagnosis.
Bereavement Leave: Time off from work immediately after a death. This can be paid or unpaid, and is commonly between 3-5 days. Bereavement Leave varies by location and employer and is often only available for certain relationships.
Burial: The act of placing remains into the earth, tomb, or a vault.
Calling Hours: A designated time before a funeral for family, friends, and other guests to gather informally, and share their condolences, memories, and support the bereaved.
Caregiver: Someone who regularly looks after someone else. This can be a family member, friend, or a professional.
Casket/ coffin: The specially designed and structured vessel or box in which one is buried. A casket typically is rectangular and has a hinged lid, whereas a coffin is more commonly a tapered hexagon.
Celebrant: Trained professionals who lead and act as the Master of Ceremonies during an end-of-life-event, such as a memorial service.
Cemetery: The general term for a burial space. A graveyard is a cemetery attached to a church or place of worship and a necropolis a specialized cemetery which is large, historic, and features elaborate tombs. Cultural expectations of cemeteries vary widely.
Columbarium: A room or building with niches or vaults for urns containing cremains.
Comfort Care: Care focused on pain and symptom relief, rather than a cure for a condition.
Coroner: A government official whose duty it is to investigate deaths which may have occurred due to non-natural causes. Usually an elected official. Does not always have a medical background.
Cremains: The human remains left after the process of cremation, these are primarily bone and skeletal material. A portmanteau of “cremated remains.”
Cremation: The process of using intense heat to reduce a body to bone fragments, which are then ground into a powdery substance (sometimes called ashes).
Georg Lippitsc via Wikimedia Commons
Crematory: A facility featuring a retort, or cremation chamber, to reduce remains through the process of cremation.
Crypt: An underground room or vault used as a burial place.
Death Cafe: A social gathering with the purpose to have conversations around death and dying.
Death Care: The professional and non-professional fields and practices related to care, support, and services for the dying and those around them before, during, or after a death.
Death Certificate: An official document stating the date, place, and cause of a person’s death, issued by a government office and signed by a physician, coroner, or medical examiner.
Death Doula: A non-medical professional who provides practical and emotional support before, during, or after a death. Also referred to as a death midwife, a death tender, a death companion, or a death guide.
Death Rattle: A boisterous, loud noise from breathing that sometimes can be heard when someone is nearing death.
Decedent: A person who has died.
Digital Legacy / Digital Estate: The digital information, files, and accounts associated with and available about someone following their death.
Direct Disposition: Cremation, burial, or other handling of remains taking place immediately following the death without viewings and funeral services.
Disenfranchised Grief: Grief that is not openly acknowledged. This could be for an ex-spouse, someone in a non-monogamous relationship, or a relationship that was estranged.The lack of support can add to the emotional toll and isolation.
Disinter: Removal of remains from their place of interment.
Disposition: A broad term referring to the final method of handling human remains. Burial, cremation, and natural organic reduction are all forms of disposition.
Do Not Resuscitate (DNR): A legally binding medical document instructing care providers not to perform CPR or other resuscitation procedures or interventions if a patient stops breathing or their heart stops.
Embalming: Embalming is the process of preserving human remains by treating them with chemicals to temporarily stop decomposition.
Eulogy: A speech or written work portraying, honoring, and/or celebrating someone who has died, typically outlining their life story, achievements, and personal values.
Executor / Estate Executor: A person or institution that carries out the deceased wishes after they die, either by following a will or the local laws.
Funeral Director: The licensed professional who prepares the body for burial and arranges the funeral service if one is occurring.
Funeral Home: A business that handles the disposition, entombment, and/or funeral or celebration of life planning services.
Funeral Pyre: A structure made of wood for burning a body as part of a funeral rite and a type of cremation. While no longer legal in certain places, funeral pyres remain an important and carried tradition for a wide variety of cultures.
Grave: A place where a dead body is buried, sometimes with a headstone or other marker.
Graveside Service: A funeral, internment, memorial service or celebration of life taking place at the grave of the decedent. May be a part of another event or a standalone event.
Green burial: A burial where the dead body is adorned in readily biodegradable materials or vessels, such as a shroud made from natural fibers or a willow casket, directly into the Earth without a vault. No chemical processes, like embalming, are included.
Grief counselor/therapist: A professional in the psychology and mental health fields who specialises in supporting people experiencing grief and loss. Qualifications, licenses, and certifications will vary depending on the location of the practitioner.
Headstone: A marker over a burial place, typically engraved with the decedent’s name, dates of birth and passing, and other information, symbols, or images.
Health Care Proxy: A legal document that designates a trusted person to make medical decisions in the event that someone is not able to make them for themselves.
Homegoing: A culturally distinct end-of-life ceremony within the Black American community that is steeped in the religious culture of the Black church that features gospel music, celebratory rituals, readings and reflections.
Home funeral: A spectrum of end-of-life rituals which allow for some or all after-death care to be conducted and/or led by the loved ones of the deceased, often in a domestic space such as a home.
Hospice: A branch of health care that prioritizes comfort and symptom relief for terminally ill patients over extending expected life span.
Informed consent: A process of transparency in which healthcare professionals clearly educate patients about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention.
Interment: The act of placing a body in the grave or other final location. May also be used more broadly to refer to cremains or other remains being placed as well.
Inurnment: The act of placing cremains in an urn and the urn into the columbarium niche
Legacy project: A dedicated activity to honor the values and interests of someone after their death. This can be conducted by someone anticipating their own death or by someone else following the death.
Life sustaining treatment: Medical interventions used to prolong a person’s life when vital organs or systems are failing.
Living Funeral: An end-of-life event or ceremony held while someone is still alive, so they may hear the stories and tributes shared, and possibly help plan it or speak on their own behalf.
Living will: A living will is a written document with your wishes regarding medical care
Mausoleum: An above-ground, stand-alone building that houses the remains of one or more people.
Medical Aid in Dying (MAID): Involves the administration of medication to a person, at their request, in order to bring about their death, often to relieve their suffering.
Medical examiner: An official who is responsible for investigating the cause of a death and overseeing the death certification process.
Memorial page: A virtual space created on the Internet for the purpose of remembering, celebrating, or commemorating those who have died. They can include photos, tributes, written eulogies or obituaries, and may offer the opportunity for others to comment as well.
Memorial Service: An end of life gathering to honor, remember, and/or celebrate
Morgue: A place where bodies are kept temporarily, usually prior to identification or an autopsy.
Mortician: The person who prepares the body for burial and arranges the funeral service if one is occurring.
Mortuary Science: The study of techniques related to preparing bodies for burial, cremation, or other disposition, along with embalming, restoration, presentation, and funeral service management.
Natural organic reduction: A process which uses large containers to hold human remains together with straw, wood chips, and/or other natural materials for a period of about four to six weeks to convert the remains to soil. Sometimes referred to as “human composting” or “terramation.”
Next of Kin / Legal Next of Kin: Your closest family member determined by law, used in medical emergencies or inheritance. If no will or other legal paperwork is created, state law will determine the order of priority. Typically a spouse, parent, child, or sibling, a will or advance directive can put a friend or other person on the list.
Obituary: A notice of a death, usually including a short biography, published in a newspaper or online.
Ossuary: A chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains.
Palliative Care: Medical and non-medical care focused on relieving pain, symptoms, and stress caused by serious, chronic, or life-threatening illness.
Power of Attorney/Power of Attorney for Personal Care: The legal paperwork that allows a person to act on your behalf for financial, legal, and medical matters.
Preplanning: The process of making funeral, bodily disposition, and burial decisions prior to death. This can involve pre-paying for services with a funeral home, or recording your wishes and sharing them with a trusted person.
Repatriation: The process of transporting remains back to their preferred burial place. This may be necessary if someone dies away from home, or when human remains have been stolen.
Retort: The actual chamber where cremation takes place.
Respite Care: Short-term substitute care so a primary caregiver can take a break or manage their own affairs.
Rites of Passage / Religious Rites: A ceremony marking an important stage in someone’s life. In this case, their immediate death or recent death. These rituals or rites vary with religion and culture.
Sea Burial/Scattering at Sea: The disposal of human remains, either a body or cremains, in the ocean, which is typically done from a ship or boat.
Neptune memorial reef off of Key Biscayne, Florida. Image via Wikicommons
Shiva: Often referred to as sitting Shiva, is a week-long mourning period in the Jewish tradition. The etymology of the words shiva comes from the Hebrew word meaning seven.
Shroud: A cloth to wrap a body in for burial.
Sky Burial: The body of the deceased is ritualistically placed on a mountaintop to naturally decompose, as it is exposed to the natural elements and/or eaten by animals.
Survivor Guilt: Guilt, shame, or remorse associated with surviving a traumatic event. Someone having survivor guilt may experience intrusive thoughts or memories, trouble sleeping, nightmares, or other symptoms.
Terminally-ill / Terminal Diagnosis: A condition that is incurable, irreversible, progressive, and expected to result in death, typically within six months.
Urn: A vessel to hold cremated remains.
Vault: A lined and sealed outer container to house a casket or other vessel for remains.
Virtual funeral: A memorial service which is held partially or entirely online via video conference platform. Virtual memorial services are typically preferred by loved ones who are geographically separated.
Visitation: A designated time before a funeral for family, friends, and other guests to gather and share their condolences, memories, and support the bereaved.
Voluntary Stopping of Eating or Drinking (VSED): A choice during end-of-life care to stop eating, drinking, and the intake of fluids and artificial nutrition.
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