URN

URN, a kind of vase, of a roundish form, but swelling in the middle, like the common pitchers; now seldom used but in the way of ornament over chimney-pieces, in buffets, &c. The great use of urns among the ancients was to preserve the ashes of the dead after they were burnt; for which reason they were called cineraria, and urnæ cineraria, and were placed sometimes under the tombstone on which the epitaph was engraved, and sometimes in vaults in their own houses.