1862 W. Collins No Name I. 249 Paper with the deepest mourning border round it.

1868 ‘F. Fern’ Folly as it Flies 153 With tender compassion for the bereaved,—for in many a home that bright flag will always wear its mourning-border.

1986 New Yorker 7 July 52/1 My memory of him stops with the..piteous little ‘racial’ realization framing the whole like a black mourning border.

1899 Westm. Gaz. 16 Nov. 2/3 Mourning-bordered envelopes.

1847 C. Dickens Dombey & Son (1848) xvii. 164 Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth.

1876 M. E. Braddon Joshua Haggard's Daughter II. 35 Priscilla cast away her velvet head-band, reckless of the little mourning brooch..which confined it on her intellectual brow.

1986 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 26 Feb. 16/6 (caption) Mourning brooch from Chantilly Antiques, Clayfield.

1804 M. Wilmot Let. 2 Jan. in M. Wilmot & C. Wilmot Russ. Jrnls. (1934) i. 72 A Mourning Card was presented to the Princess.

1890 Amer. Naturalist 24 1109 These are the simple but touching lines of the mourning card telling us of the death of a loving wife and the loss and grief of an affectionate husband.

1987 L. Grant-Adamson Wild Justice (1989) (BNC) 84 Each page was displayed edged with black like a mourning card.

1710 M. Henry Life Lieut. Illidge in Wks. (1853) II. 585/1 His corpse was carried on a mourning carriage to Witembury.

a1827 J. Hyslop Poems (1887) 151 I saw..A dark mourning carriage draw nigh:—By the green grave it hover'd,..Where a white cover'd coffin now lay.

1998 Independent (Nexis) 17 Oct. 8 Two horse-drawn mourning carriages, £1,700; horse-drawn carriage for wreaths sent by friends and colleagues, £850.

1651 Mercurius Politicus No. 42 679 Yesterday, the Corps of the deceased P. of Orange were conveyed hence to Delph, with great pomp, in a mourning Chariot drawn with 8 horses.

1703 London Gaz. No. 3945/4 At Mr. Harrison's, Coach-Maker,..is a Mourning Coach and Harness,..also a Mourning Charriot.

1872 New Englander (New Haven, Connecticut) Jan. 82 He then fasted and cut off his hair and nails, riding in a mourning chariot.

1637 J. Shirley Lady of Pleasure i. sig. C² Ile rather be beholding to my Aunt The Countesse for her mourning coach.

1685 R. Verney Let. 5 Apr. in M. M. Verney Mem. Verney Family Restoration to Revol. (1899) 327 Sir Richard Pigott was buried very honorably,..with 2 new Mourning Coaches & a Hearse.

1690 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) II. 148 The 23rd, sir John Jonston, condemned for stealing Mrs. Wharton, went up in a mourning coach to Tyburn, and was executed for the same.

1714 A. Smith Hist. Lives High-way Men (ed. 2) II. 18 He was..carry'd into a mourning Coach, and so convey'd to the Tangier-Tavern.

1789 E. Butler Jrnl. 21 Aug. in E. M. Bell Hamwood Papers (1930) ix. 222 The Hearse and Six, attended by two Mourning Coaches and eight mourners, came thro' Oswestry.

1841 C. Dickens Barnaby Rudge ix. 285 I wish I may..never be buried decent with a mourning-coach and feathers.

1991 G. Abbott Lords of Scaffold (BNC) 118 The hearse followed, with mourning coaches full of friends.

1591 J. Harington tr. L. Ariosto Orlando Furioso xxvii. xcii. 232 Within the mourning coffin was enclosed, His corse, whom she so lou'd.

1683 Condemn. & Execution A. Sydney 2 They put it [sc. the body] into a Mourning-Coffin..and conveyed it thence, in order to its Interment.

1711 E. Settle City-Ramble iv. xvii. 53 (stage direct.) Enter four Bearers with a mourning Coffin.

1856 Southern Literary Messenger 22 417/1 Mourning envelopes sealed with black wax.

1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 332/1 Mourning envelopes.

1999 Folklore (Nexis) 1 Jan. 13 A big mourning envelope with a black wax seal representing a human skeleton.

1947 M. J. Herskovitz & F. S. Herskovitz Trinidad Village viii. 204 Mournin' groun' is the term used to designate a kind of retreat..at which Shouters are initiated into the mysteries of their faith.

1947 M. J. Herskovitz & F. S. Herskovitz Trinidad Village xi. 307 The rites of the mourning ground hold many resemblances to initiation into the African cult groups.

a1982 G. Simpson in Sunday Sun (Bridgetown, Barbados) 23 May 11 Dreams and visions are given mainly after spending time on the mourning ground.

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 253/1 Peake of a ladyes mournyng heed, biquoquet.

1598 Bp. J. Hall Virgidemiarum: 3 Last Bks. Authors Charge to Satyres sig. A4^v Nor, if your life gin ere my life be done, Will hardly yelde t' awayt my mourning hearse. But for my dead corps change my liuing verse.

c1660 J. Evelyn Diary anno 1641 (1955) II. 26 We at night follow'd the mourning hearse to the Church at Wotton.

1698 J. Hopkins Victory of Death xlix. 62 A mourning Hearse, all deckt with white, appears, Within, an open Coffin lies.

1695 London Gaz. No. 3059/1 Then followed the Mourning Horse, led by the Lord Viscount Villers, Master of the Horse to Her late Majesty, attended by two Equerries.

1736 T. Lediard Life Marlborough III. 418 The second Mourning-Horse, covered with black Cloth.

1762 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy VI. xxv. 109 To take his mourning horse by the bridle, to follow his hearse, as he directed thee.

1819 W. Irving Sketch Bk. iv. 282 An English funeral..is made up of show and gloomy parade: mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes, and hireling mourners.

1863 V. Penny Employments of Women 492 (table) Polishers of Steel Jewelry... Mourning Jewelry... False Jewelry [etc.].

1895 Montgomery Ward Catal. Spring & Summer 179 Real onyx and jet mourning jewelry.

1960 H. Hayward Connoisseur's Handbk. Antique Collecting 192/1 Mourning jewellery became particularly fashionable in the second half of the 18th cent... Earlier mourning jewellery of the 16th and 17th cent..was of a more gloomy kind.

1991 J. Litten Eng. Way of Death (BNC) 30 The extremely lucrative trade in mourning jewellery.

1846 Chambers's Edinb. Jrnl. 25 July 58/2 The preparation of mourning note-papers and envelopes seemed in itself a great concern.

1862 Internat. Exhib.: Illustr. Catal. Industr. Dept. II. xxviii. §5127 Mourning note papers and envelopes.

1996 Guardian (Nexis) 24 Apr. t 6 Royal letters... All, discouragingly, on black-edged mourning notepaper.

1635 T. Heywood Hierarchie Blessed Angells 203 He records his Elegeicke Song In mourning papers: and when all decayes, Herse, Shewes, and Pompe; yet That resounds his praise.

1716 J. Addison Drummer v. 45 Mourning Paper, that is black'd at the Edges.

1801 M. Edgeworth Belinda III. xxv. 43 The letter was copied..upon a sheet of mourning paper.

1971 Dict. National Biogr. 1951–60 87/1 The black he habitually wore and the mourning paper he always used were the outward signs of an inward tragic grief.

1828 N. Amer. Rev. Jan. 154 His words are not hung with black, like mourning-pieces, but the remembrance of his country's wrongs gives a solemn energy to every sentiment.

1967 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 12 Nov. (1970) 588 On the walls are samplers and ‘mourning pieces’ and quaint American primitive portraits.

2001 St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (Electronic ed.) 12 Feb. 12 Through history there were lovelocks, Memento Mori jewelry, which evolved into mourning pieces.

1822 Lit. Speculum Mar. 335 An imitation mourning pin, in value two shillings and six pence, planted in the middle [of the cravat].

1840 Penny Cycl. XVIII. 162/2 Mourning pins may be made of brass,..varnishing being substituted for tinning.

1878 Catholic World 28 119/1 Her snowy kerchief fastened primly by a mourning-pin in an old-fashioned diamond setting that caught and glinted back the sun's rays.

1998 Sun (Baltimore) (Nexis) 13 Sept. b1 A rare Lincoln mourning pin, the kind Northerners wore after the president was assassinated.

1653 N. Hookes Amanda 67 Then I conceiv'd that there might be, In those black browes a mystery,..Two arches of a mourning ring.

1703 London Gaz. No. 3897/4 3 other Mourning Rings, with W.C. ob. 18 Dec. 1702.

1852 D. M. Mulock Agatha's Husband (1875) xii. 306 The large diamond mourning ring which the widower always wore, ‘In memory of Catherine Harper’.

1992 Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chron. 18 Oct. c1/6 Locks of hair from the deceased were often placed in mourning rings, popular jewelry pieces of the period.

2005 C. L. White Amer. Artifacts Personal Adornm., 1680–1820 iv. 95/1 (caption) Gold mourning ringset with paste cut in shape of coffin over image of skeleton, owned by William Hunt Jr.

1623 J. Taylor Praise & Vertue of Jayle sig. A5^v With mourning shirts, and sheetes, & lice some store..a Prison truly doth Nip sore.

1650 T. Fuller Pisgah-sight of Palestine iv. vi. 98 I conceive this blackness no..dark die on Davids clothes, but rather a dirty hue, or soil contracted on his white garments, from neglect of washing them.., as we say mourning shirts..it being customary for men in sadness, to spare the pains of their laundresses.

c1730 R. Savage Author to be Let Publ. Pref. Had it not been more laudable in Mr. Roome, the son of an undertaker, to have borne a link and a mourning-staff in the long procession of a funeral, than [etc.].

1663–6 Househ. Bks. J. Sharp f. 5^v 2 ellis of creap for a murneing string when the Bischop of Orknay died at 2 lib. 13s. the ell.

1703 in R. Renwick Extracts Rec. Stirling (1889) II. 99 Four mourning strings..which they are to wear above their belts that day upon account of the funerals of the deceast John Stivensone, provost.

1827 W. Taylor Poems 48 Put on a mourning string, Since he's awa that yer bell did ring.

1683 Dutch Rogue 55 He bought to the value of 800 gilders in Cloth, Bays and other Mourning stuffs, making the people believe he had an Uncle lately dead.

1866 J. L. Hayes Fleece & Loom 13 One statute required that all black cloth and mourning stuff worn at funerals should be made of British wool alone.

1688 J. Verney Let. in M. M. Verney Memoirs (1899) IV. xi. 442 A gentile & fashionable mourning sword for 7/6.

1748 T. Smollett Roderick Random II. xliv. 79 The other moveables which I possessed..were, a gold watch with a chased case, two valuable diamond rings, two mourning swords, one with a silver handle [etc.].

1991 J. Litten Eng. Way of Death (BNC) i. 13 It was not at all unusual for civic authorities to have a mourning sword.

c1860 in A. Adburgham Shops & Shopping (1964) vi. 65 The London General Mourning Ware-house.

1879 J. R. Planché Island of Jewels i. ii. 21 Hung be the heavens with black of deepest dye, And one great mourning warehouse make the sky!

1991 J. Litten Eng. Way of Death i. 31 Not one undertaker concerned himself with buying-in to the mourning warehouses, thereby turning the tables on the mercers and upholders.

a1439 J. Lydgate Fall of Princes (Bodl. 263) vii. 1343 (MED) Afftir..Cam gret noumbre..of Iacobis hih kynreede..Lik folk dismaied, clad in moornyng weede.

1594 W. Shakespeare Titus Andronicus i. i. 70 Haile Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds . View more context for this quotation

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 44. ¶4 An afflicted Widow in her Mourning-Weeds.

1988 C. McWilliam Case of Knives (1989) xxv. 205 I was like a woman who has been sewing mourning weeds all day.

c1465 Care of Horses (Yale Beinecke 163) f. 55 For the mornyng of the chine. Hit ys a thing that comys of colde afty[r] a grete hete & þen hit bredys aftyr [in] þ^e waynis [= veins]..& then it cometh a-longe by the chyne & it maters out at his nose thirlys.

?1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. xxxii^v Mornyng on the chynne..appereth at his nose thyrlles lyke oke water.

1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes A disease in horses called the mourning of the chine, issuing at the nosthrils.

1607 E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 371 This word mourning of the Chine, is a corrupt name borrowed of the French toong, wherein it is cald Mote [1658 Morte] deschien, that is to say, the death of the backe. Because many do hold this opinion that this disease doth consume the marrow of the backe.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Mourne, the Mumpes; and (in a horse, &c.) the mourning of the Chyne.

1672 J. Lacy Dumb Lady v. i. 72 Mourning of the Chine? with your favour, Sir that is the disease of a Horse, and the phrase of a Farrier.

1681 Table of Hard Words in S. Pordage tr. T. Willis Remaining Med. Wks. Tabes dorsalis, the mourning of the chine; a wasting or consumption of the back.]

1735 W. Burdon Gentleman's Pocket-farrier 74 The Mourning of the Chine is downright Poverty of Flesh and Blood.

1822 R. Nares Gloss. at Mose To mose in the chine, a disorder in horses, by some called mourning in the chine..

1919 F. Smith Early Hist. Veterinary Lit. I. 112 Only one of these terms requires explanation, i.e. ‘mourning of the chine’, a disease which continued to appear in veterinary works for some centuries.

OE Descent into Hell 9 Cwom seo murnende Maria on dægred.

OE Beowulf 50 Him wæs geomor sefa, murnende mod.

c1330 (c1250) Floris & Blauncheflur (Auch.) (1966) 125 (MED) Þat faire maide Blauncheflour Boþe in halle and ek in bour, Euere ȝhe made mourning chere, & biment Florice, here leue fere.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 4963 He mened him þus, wit murnand cher.

a1425 (c1384) Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Corpus Oxf.) (1850) Ezek. xxiv. 17 Nether thou shalt ete meet of mournynge men.

c1475 in F. J. Furnivall Early Eng. Poems & Lives Saints (1862) 139 (MED) I walked a-lone and wepte sore Wythe syhyngys and mornyng chere.

?1556 (a1500) Knight of Curtesy (Copland) sig. a.ii^v Alas he sayd with murnynge eyen Now is my herte in wo and payne.

1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene i. iii. sig. C6^v When mourning altars purgd with enimies life, The black infernall Furies doen aslake.

1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue i. 134 I put on a mourning-face, looke sad.

a1650 D. Calderwood Hist. Kirk Scotl. (1845) VII. 426 And uttering a small weake murning voice.

1700 J. Dryden Chaucer's Palamon & Arcite iii, in Fables 82 A Virgin-Widow, and a Mourning Bride.

1797 Encycl. Brit. XII. 436/1 Præficæ, or mourning women,..went about the streets.

1816 P. B. Shelley Alastor 5 No mourning maiden decked With weeping flowers.

1881 A. Trollope Ayala's Angel I. ii. 20 Let creditors be ever so unsatisfied, new raiment will always be found for mourning families.

1916 E. H. Porter Just David xviii. 231 Gold..which was soon to be placed at the feet of the mourning man and woman downstairs.

1985 F. Raphael Heaven & Earth v. 97 He breathed in a series of stepped sighs, like a mourning woman who is beginning to regain control of herself.

1709 S. Centlivre Busie Body i. i. 4 On Condition you'll give us a true Account how you came by that Mourning Nose.

1871 J. R. Browne Let. 25 June in L. F. Browne J. R. Browne (1969) xxii. 384 I had, in the classic language of the Ring, a mourning circle round both eyes.

1929 N.Y. Evening Jrnl. 10 Jan. 29/2 Listening to the guy wearing the mourning glim tell how he got it.

1811 T. Jefferson Garden Book (1999) 458 We were told..that Mrs. Coles would be so kind as to spare us some bulbs of the Mourning bride.

1834 M. Howitt Sketches Nat. Hist. 145 The wild fritillary. Familiarly called the weeping widow, or the mourning bride.

1864 A. Wood Class-bk. Bot. (rev. ed.) iv. 406 S. atropurpurea..Mourning Bride.

1892 J. C. R. Dorr Poems 378 Gilly-flowers and mourning-brides, And many another flower besides.

1959 R. M. Carleton Index Common Names Herbaceous Plants 84 Mournful widow... Mourning bride: Scabiosa.

1976 Hortus Third (L. H. Bailey Hortorium) 1014 [Scabiosa] atropurpurea L. Pincushions, sweet scabious, mourning-bride. Erect ann[ual], to 2 ft.

1872 1st Rep. Vermont State Board Agric. 1871–2 669 Below this [black marble] is a layer of grey, or as has recently been named, mourning granite.

1839 J. J. Audubon Synopsis Birds N. Amer. 64 Trichas Philadelphia... Mourning Ground-Warbler.

1866 Atlantic Monthly June 682/2 I know him to be a Ground-Warbler; from his dark breast the ornithologist has added the expletive Mourning, hence the Mourning Ground-Warbler.

1946 L. A. Hausman Field Bk. Eastern Birds 535 Mourning Warbler... Other Names..Mourning Ground Warbler.

1874 Amer. Cycl. IX. 364/2 I. Susiana, the mourning or crape iris, is one of the finest of the genus.

1883 W. Robinson Eng. Flower Garden 158/1 I. susiana (Mourning I[ris])... The flowers, which are produced in early summer, are very large and densely spotted and striped with dark purple on a grey ground.

1966 M. Price Iris Bk. vii. 78 The celebrated silver and black mourning iris..is easiest.

1987 Reader's Digest Encycl. Garden Plants & Flowers 362 I. susiana... This species has been in cultivation since 1573, and is known as the Mourning Iris.

1872 1st Rep. Vermont State Board Agric. 1871–2 662 The other layers most desirable and most valuable are the dark and light mourning veins.

1890 Manufacturer & Builder Dec. 273/1 The dark mourning vein has a ground of deep blue, while lines, nearly black, run through it in a zigzag course.

1810 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. II. 101 [The] Mourning Warbler, Sylvia Philadelphia,..was shot in the early part of June, on the border of a marsh.

1844 Nat. Hist. N.Y., Zool. ii. 81 The Mourning Warbler derives his name from its peculiarly melancholy notes.

1917 T. G. Pearson Birds Amer. III. 157/1 The Mourning Warbler is a quiet Thrush-like bird.

1999 Seasons Spring 30 (caption) Mourning warblers..are one of the many migrants that stop to breed on the Bruce.

1813 H. Muhlenberg Catal. Plantarum Americæ Septentrionalis 91 Mourning Willow.