How to Use cenotaph in a Sentence

cenotaph

noun
  • His gravestone was actually a cenotaph, a stone with his name on it but no body buried underneath.
    — CBS News, 1 Jan. 2020
  • The cenotaph is surrounded by four flaming torches that are kept constantly lit.
    — Smithsonian, 26 May 2017
  • Hundreds of others squared up to police with shields at the town’s cenotaph, throwing bricks, cans, and pots at officers.
    — Pan Pylas, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Aug. 2024
  • People crowded around the white fence surrounding the cenotaph to watch a wreath being placed at the memorial.
    — Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 28 May 2018
  • Bach laid a wreath and observed a minute of silence in the rain in front of the Peace Memorial Park cenotaph.
    — San Francisco Chronicle, 16 July 2021
  • Some survivors and their relatives prayed at the park’s cenotaph before the ceremony.
    — Fox News, 6 Aug. 2020
  • Some survivors and their relatives prayed at the park's cenotaph before the ceremony.
    — Author: Mari Yamaguchi, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Aug. 2020
  • The upright assemblage stands somewhere between a diorama and a cenotaph.
    — Washington Post, 18 Sep. 2020
  • This epigram is quoted by Herodotus as the second of three displayed at the site of Thermopylae on monuments or cenotaphs.
    — A.e. Stallings, The New York Review of Books, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Most striking is that the cenotaph, located on the edge of the cemetery, features Morgan facing outward, away from the other graves.
    — Colin Dickey, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 July 2023
  • Baker’s remains will stay in Monaco, where she was buried, but her presence at the Pantheon is commemorated with a plaque on a cenotaph.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 30 Nov. 2021
  • In the midst of tragedy, Back Home in Lahaina has become something of a cenotaph to the lost lives, buildings and history of the culturally rich town.
    — Lucas Kwan Peterson, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2023
  • In a symbolism-laden procession, soldiers lifted her cenotaph, draped with the French flag, and carried it along a red carpet to the country’s national mausoleum.
    — Washington Post, 30 Nov. 2021
  • Air force officers carried her cenotaph along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Pantheon.
    — The Associated. Press, Arkansas Online, 1 Dec. 2021
  • The pharaoh also took the care to honor his grandmother Tetisheri by building a cenotaph to her in Abydos, the center of the cult of Osiris, the god of the afterlife.
    — National Geographic, 7 Mar. 2019
  • Three buildings the Texas General Land Office recently agreed to buy are seen in the upper right side of the frame just behind the white marble cenotaph.
    — Scott Huddleston, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Dec. 2017
  • Military officers carried her cenotaph along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Garden to the Pantheon.
    — Sylvie Corbet and Jeffrey Schaeffer, USA TODAY, 1 Dec. 2021
  • Military officers carried her cenotaph along a red carpet that stretched for four blocks of cobblestoned streets from the Luxembourg Garden to the Pantheon.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 Nov. 2021
  • Archaeologists concluded the structure was actually a false tomb, or a cenotaph, a type of burial monument erected to honor a deceased person buried elsewhere.
    — Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, 24 Oct. 2025
  • Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the city’s mayor and other officials laid flowers at the cenotaph.
    — Mari Yamaguchi, Chicago Tribune, 5 Aug. 2025
  • The building features a number of elaborate interior details, including crypts and tombs, cenotaphs, iwans, chhatris, and minarets, as well as sarcophagus elements.
    — Kathleen Felton, Travel + Leisure, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Baker's military medals lay atop the cenotaph, which was draped in the French tricolor flag and contained soils from her birthplace in Missouri, from France and from her final resting place in Monaco.
    — The Associated. Press, Arkansas Online, 1 Dec. 2021
  • Baker's military medals lay atop the cenotaph, which was draped in the French tricolor flag and contained soils from her birthplace in Missouri, from France, and from her final resting place in Monaco.
    — Sylvie Corbet and Jeffrey Schaeffer, USA TODAY, 1 Dec. 2021
  • Baker’s military medals lay atop the cenotaph, which was draped in the French tricolor flag and contained soils from her birthplace in Missouri, from France, and from her final resting place in Monaco.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 Nov. 2021
  • Ancient Origins continues that archaeologists expected to find human remains or grave goods, the absence of which communicated to researchers that the site was a cenotaph, a symbolic grave for someone who was laid to rest elsewhere.
    — Maria Mocerino, Interesting Engineering, 19 Oct. 2025
  • The 649 Argentinian soldiers who died in the conflict, one of the bloodiest events of Argentina's long military dictatorship, are remembered at a dedicated cenotaph in Buenos Aires.
    — Richard Quest and Joe Minihane, CNN, 27 Apr. 2022
  • This image taken on August 5, 2025, shows the cenotaph ahead of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
    — Brendan Cole, MSNBC Newsweek, 6 Aug. 2025
  • President Barack Obama hugs Shigeaki Mori at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial park cenotaph in Hiroshima on May 27, 2016.
    — CBS News, 17 Mar. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cenotaph.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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