Pl. tumuli. [Derivative (? dim.) from root tum- of tumē-re to swell, tumor, etc.] An ancient sepulchral mound, a barrow (BARROW sb.1 3).
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIV. xlv. (Bodl. MS.). A downe [is] lower þan an hille … and hatte tumulus, as it were swelling londe.]
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 403. Not the only signe of Roman tumuli.
1765. J. Bartram, Jrnl., 26 Dec., in W. Stork, Acc. E. Florida (1766), 7. A middling sized Indian tumulus.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., IV. 393. The tumuli, and the other repositories of the dead,… discovered in the … deserts of the north.
1853. Felton, Fam. Lett., xxx. (1865), 264. Leonidas and his Three Hundred lie beneath yonder tumulus.
1853. Lyell, Antiq. Man, 15. Tumuli of the stone period.
