Words at Play : Top 10 Spelling Bee Winning Words
Spelled By:
Wendy Guey, 1996
Used in a Sentence:
"In the 18th and 19th centuries, the fear of accidental vivisepulture, or premature burial, led to the creation of safety devices that enabled the occupant of a grave to ring a bell above the ground if he woke up in his coffin alive."
About the Word:
Pronunciation: \viv-ih-SEP-ul-cher\
The act or practice of burying alive, known as vivisepulture, has a linguistic link to vivisection, dissecting something still alive. The vivi- in both words has an ancestor in the Latin vivere, "to live."
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