herse

• IPA^(key): /hɜː(ɹ)s/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Homophone: hearse
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s

From Middle English hierche (“type of harrow”), from Middle French herce, herse.^[1] Doublet of hearse.

herse (plural herses)

1. A kind of gate or portcullis, having iron bars, like a harrow, studded with iron spikes, hung above gateways so that it may be quickly lowered to impede the advance of an enemy.
   • 1848, Benjamin Webb, Sketches of Continental Ecclesiolgy:

     In the south aisle, on a slab raised on four low shafts and covered by an iron herse, is a fine coloured recumbent effigy of a bishop

See hearse.

herse (plural herses)

1. Obsolete form of hearse (“a carriage for the dead”).
2. (obsolete) A funeral ceremony.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Ægloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:

     Dido, my deare, alas!
     Dead, and lyeth wrapt in lead. O heavie herse!

herse (third-person singular simple present herses, present participle hersing, simple past and past participle hersed)

1. Alternative form of hearse
   • 1646, Richard Crashaw, Sospetto d'Herode:

     The house is hers'd about with a black wood, Which nods with many a heavy-headed tree: Each flower's a pregnant poison, try'd and good; Each herb a plague.

   • [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC:

     The Grecians spritefully drew from the darts the corse, And hers'd it, bearing it to fleet.

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear. O, would she were hers'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin.

• here's, sheer, HREEs, Esher, heers, Sheer, Rhees, Shere, heres

Inherited from Old French herce, from Latin hirpicem. The initial aspiration is said to be onomatopoetic, but may also be due to influence by the unrelated Germanic words at hand in Old Norse herfi, English harrow.

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /ɛʁs/

herse f (plural herses)

1. harrow (device for breaking up soil)
2. portcullis (gate in the form of a grating)
3. spike strip, road spikes, traffic spikes
4. grate, grill (especially to block large objects floating down a river)
5. candlestick, candelabrum (with a triangular base and spikes to hold large candles)
6. stage lighting instrument, luminaire that disperses light over a stage
7. (heraldry) portcullis

herse

1. inflection of herser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular present imperative

• “herse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Semi-learned borrowing from Old Norse hersir, from Proto-Germanic *harisjaz (“army’s leader”), from Proto-Germanic *harjaz (“army”).

• IPA^(key): /²hɛrsə/, /²hɛʂːə/

herse m (definite singular hersen, indefinite plural hersar, definite plural hersane)

1. hersir (a local chief lord up until about 1050)