[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] 1word1day
vivisepulture (vi-vi-SE-pul-tyur) - n., the act or practice of burying someone alive.


The taphephobics among us are now squirming in their seats, I can see. Note, this not the being buried alive but being the one with the shovel. Some older sources speculate that the practice of suttee might be related, but I'm not seeing anything modern to support the idea. From Latin roots vivus, alive + sepulture, burying.

There's a story on campus of academic vivisepulture, telling of how one year after finals were over, library staff found the corpse of a student buried under a pile of books and journals and starved to death.

---L.
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