HATCHMENT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Hatchment

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noun

Hatchment n.

(Her.) A sort of panel, upon which the arms of a deceased person are temporarily displayed, usually on the walls of his dwelling. It is lozenge-shaped or square, but is hung cornerwise. It is used in England as a means of giving public notification of the death of the deceased, his or her rank, whether married, widower, widow, etc. Called also achievement. "His obscure funeral; No trophy, sword, or hatchment o'er his bones."

A sword or other mark of the profession of arms; in general, a mark of dignity. "Let there be deducted, out of our main potation, Five marks in hatchments to adorn this thigh."

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Etymology of 'Hatchment'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hatchment" Quotes from Famous Books

... fast as they leave the body, are gathered in some intermediate state, a starless grave world, a ghostly limbo. When the present cycle of things is completed, when the clock of time runs down and its lifeless weight falls in the socket, and "Death's empty helmet yawns grimly over the funeral hatchment of the world," the gates of this long barred receptacle of the deceased will be struck open, and its pale prisoners, in accumulated hosts, issue forth, and enter on the immortal inheritance reserved ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Riversborough stood. The houses on each side of the broad and quiet street were handsome, old-fashioned dwelling-places, not one of which had as yet been turned into a shop. The most eminent lawyers and doctors lived in it; and there was more than one frontage which displayed a hatchment, left to grow faded and discolored long after the year of mourning was ended. Here too was the judge's residence, set apart for his occupation during the assizes. But the old bank was the most handsome and most ancient of all those urban mansions. It had originally stood alone on the ...

— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... wrote A Sentimental Journey, lies about 18 miles north of York. The hamlet stands on slightly rising ground. At the bottom of the hill is the village smithy, the well, a farm, and facing a big elm tree is the inn, bearing a great hatchment-like signboard showing the Fauconberg arms and motto. The cottages of the villagers are on the slope of the hill, and at the top is the church to which Sterne was appointed vicar in 1760. Close at hand is the quaint seventeenth-century ...

— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... after it. That's the royal road to miss it. You may build up your house of happiness with all your care through years, and you will find you have only built it up to draw down the blinds and hang out the hatchment above the door, for the tenant to inhabit ...

— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... that day, it was known in all the country around that the old countess, Lady Carset, lay in funeral state in the royal guest-chamber at Houghton Castle, for the long red flag was floating half-way down its staff, and a hatchment hung in mournful gorgeousness over the principal entrance between ...

— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... be so; His means of death, his obscure funeral,— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,[34] No noble rite nor formal ostentation,— Cry to be heard,[35] as 'twere from heaven to earth, That ...

— Hamlet • William Shakespeare