homegoing means A voyage or journey home. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “homegoing” is a great word
HOMEGOING — [Noun] A Christian funeral rite, especially in African-American tradition, celebrating the deceased’s return to a spiritual home or heaven. The term is a compound of home (one’s dwelling or place of origin) and going (the act of moving or traveling), and this specific, consoling usage is first attested in 1866. Unlike a "funeral" (which centers on mourning and finality) or a "voyage" (which implies uncertain adventure), a homegoing is a celebration of a soul’s certain, earned arrival. It is the weight lifting from the shoulders of the mourners as the choir swells, the polished wood of the casket gleaming not as a box but as a vessel, and the final, shouted "Amen!" that is less a goodbye than a bon voyage for a soul finally headed back—a ritual that transforms the grammar of grief from a period into a welcome-home comma.
Etymology
From home + going.
noun
- A voyage or journey home.“On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath - which produced a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all.”
- An African-American Christian funeral rite marking the going home of the deceased to the Lord or to Heaven.