hatchment

English

Funerary hatchment of Thomas White, in St Nicholas' Church, Tuxford.

Etymology

From Middle French hachement, a modification of Old French acesmement (“adornment”) (related to Italian accismare); not, as is often claimed, an alteration of achievement.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhæt͡ʃmənt/

Noun

hatchment (plural hatchments)

1. (heraldry) A display of the arms, supporters, crests, motto, etc of a deceased person, placed within a black lozenge and hung on a wall
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], page 275, column 1:

     No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 7, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual.

   • 1953 June, “Royal Railway Journeys”, in Railway Magazine, page 372:

     Immediately the Railway Executive received the news, the former London & North Eastern Railway special rolling stock was prepared, including the saloon always used as a hearse coach, which was painted black and decorated each side with hatchments of the Royal Arms.

   • 2012 October 8, Daniel W. Patterson, The True Image: Gravestone Art and the Culture of Scotch Irish Settlers in the Pennsylvania and Carolina Backcountry‎^[1], UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 141:

     The second and third quarters of the shield are indecipherable on the stone but clearer in two other representations of the arms, a painted wooden funeral hatchment for Mary Davie […]

Translations

Translations

• French: obiit (fr) m