How to Use churchyard in a Sentence

churchyard

noun
  • He was wrapped in tent canvas and buried in a hasty grave in a churchyard.
    — Dave Philipps, New York Times, 29 May 2017
  • She was buried next to her first husband in a churchyard near Chatsworth.
    — Elizabeth Angell, Town & Country, 31 Oct. 2016
  • The dead were then buried in the local churchyard or in family plots on the back forty of the farm.
    — Lisa Wells, Harper's Magazine, 28 Sep. 2021
  • Workers are exhuming bodies from a mass grave that was set up in a churchyard.
    — Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 12 Apr. 2022
  • At first officers blocked them in front of the churchyard, but the woman ignored them and forced her way inside.
    — Alex Horton, Washington Post, 13 May 2018
  • Everyone in this churchyard succumbs to their baser instincts as the play unfolds.
    — Karen D'souza, The Mercury News, 11 Feb. 2017
  • When police fired into the churchyard, the crowds ran screaming, video from local media showed.
    — Robyn Dixon, latimes.com, 12 Apr. 2018
  • The lavra’s doors are off their hinges and transoms have buckled; the brick walls of the churchyard bear the cavities of artillery.
    — Ainara Tiefenthäler, New York Times, 19 Dec. 2022
  • As the funeral procession approached the churchyard, a group of women tossed rose petals and rice.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2026
  • In Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, bodies wrapped in black plastic were piled on one end of a mass grave in a churchyard.
    — chicagotribune.com, 4 Apr. 2022
  • In this Northern Irish churchyard, burial plots line the paths like little marble farms for the dead.
    — Smithsonian, 19 Dec. 2019
  • Parting obediently to make way, the crowd followed them over the lawn and out onto the winding dirt road that led to the churchyard.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 9 July 2021
  • In Bucha on Monday, the work of exhuming bodies from a mass grave in a churchyard resumed.
    — Yuras Karmanau, Adam Schreck and Cara Anna, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Apr. 2022
  • Priests could not catechize children, bring the sacraments to the sick, or do pastoral work outside the local churchyard.
    — George Weigel, WSJ, 17 Mar. 2022
  • Yet there'd be outrage if someone went into a churchyard and starting digging up the dead of 300 years ago.
    — Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 19 Sep. 2011
  • Finally, among more than a dozen other fresh graves, the two were buried side by side in the village churchyard on April 12.
    — Laura Kingstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug. 2022
  • In a touching tribute, their ashes were buried side-by-side in plots at a churchyard in Warsop, Nottinghamshire.
    — Aletha Adu, Fox News, 10 June 2018
  • Some, like the Tollund Man, were initially assumed to be murder victims, and many were reburied in churchyards.
    — Robert Rubsam, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2020
  • After that, a succession of developers bought the churchyard, and some city leaders suspected the bodies were moved.
    — Anne Geggis, Sun-Sentinel.com, 13 June 2017
  • The church’s large parking lot was full long before the event began, and people parked blocks away and walked to the churchyard, greeting one another with subdued hugs and wide, worried eyes.
    — Los Angeles Times, 26 Feb. 2022
  • Only days before, Al-Rahi had stood in the very churchyard where the crowd assembled Wednesday for his funeral.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2026
  • Areas such as ancestral burial grounds, temples and churchyards have been given protection through taboo and religious belief.
    — John Healey, John Halley and Kalliopi Stara, Smithsonian, 17 May 2018
  • Preferring to sleep each night in tents pitched outdoors, the monks have been surprised to see their message transcend ideologies, drawing huge crowds into churchyards, city halls and town squares across six states.
    — Deepa Bharath, Fortune, 11 Jan. 2026
  • Not far in the churchyard is the flat stone of Russell Gregory, whose name is remembered in the park’s Gregory’s Bald.
    — Amy McRary, The Seattle Times, 23 Dec. 2017
  • Thirty-four identical white metal crosses, crooked and misaligned, remain in the churchyard that is more frequently visited by elk, judging from the droppings in the grass, than humans these days.
    — Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Remains of the 16th century town wall, a medieval churchyard and 11 boats were among the finds, which now form the basis of the Medieval Museum.
    — David Nikel, Forbes, 13 June 2022
  • In Wuthering Heights, both Catherine and Heathcliff die in part by willing themselves into the grave—so much so there is worry that they won’t be allowed burial in the churchyard.
    — Literary Hub, 12 May 2026
  • As befits the setting of an old stone church with a shadowy churchyard, theological themes surface concerning everything from faith to resurrection to desecration to the nature of miracles.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Their annual performances of Shakespeare, staged in the churchyard of Grace Episcopal, are free and picnic-friendly, and acted by a mix of veteran thespians and first-timers.
    — Washington Post, 17 June 2019
  • According to Church practice, Catholics needed to be buried in sanctified ground, so the solution, employed by similar churchyards across Europe, was simply to reuse the graves.
    — Jennifer Billock, Smithsonian, 15 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'churchyard.' 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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