In 7– aphe. [a. F. cenotaphe (16th c.) ad. L. cenotaphium, or its original, Gr. κενοτάφιον, f. κενός empty + τάφος tomb. The L. & Gr. pl. cenotaphia has also been used in Eng.] An empty tomb; a sepulchral monument erected in honor of a deceased person whose body is elsewhere.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1244. Their Cenotaphe or imaginary tombe which was erected in Isthmus.
c. 1630. Risdon, Surv. Devon, § 254 (1811), 262. Sir John Sully … hath here a cenotaphe.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IV. 794. To Agamemnon’s name A Cenotaph I raise of deathless fame.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Biog. (1867), 74. Some of Goldsmith’s friends … honoured him with a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey.
b. In etymological sense of ‘empty sepulchre’ (whence one has risen). Also fig.
1642. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., 19. To see him [Christ] in his glory, rather than to contemplate him in his Cœnotaphe, or Sepulchre.
1820. Shelley, Cloud, 81. I silently laugh at my own cenotaph.
1878. G. Macdonald, St. George & St. M., 5. Turning her back on the cenotaph of their former greatness.
