requiem means A Mass (especially Catholic) to honor and remember a dead person. It carries an Arena rating of 1637, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, requiem ranks #207 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #490 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #585 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #609 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
requiem is pronounced /ˈɹɛ.kwi.əm/.
Why “requiem” is a great word
A musical or liturgical composition for the repose of the dead, its name a direct supplication from the first word of the Latin Introit for the traditional Mass for the Dead, *requiem* ("rest"), an alternative accusative of *requiēs*, from *re-* ("again") + *quiēs* ("rest, quiet"). Unlike the personal, poetic lament of an elegy or the raw, processional grief of a dirge, the requiem is a formal architecture of intercession. It is the cool stone of a cathedral vault, the solemn bloom of incense in still air, and the measured, dreadful silence between one chord and the next—a structured negotiation between the living and the dead, its final cadence a plea for quiet that comes again.
Etymology
From Middle English requiem, from Latin requiem, the first word of the introit for the traditional requiem mass, an alternative accusative case of Latin requiēs (“rest, repose”), from re- (“again”) + quiēs (“rest, quiet”).
noun
- A Mass (especially Catholic) to honor and remember a dead person.
- A musical composition for such a mass.
- A piece of music composed to honor a dead person.
- Rest; peace.
- A large or dangerous shark, specifically, (zoology) a member of the family Carcharhinidae.e.g.“Any man-eater is called a requiem.” — 1973, Patrick Buchanan, A Requiem of Sharks:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.