morgue

Borrowed from French morgue. The second sense developed from the first, via "a prison examination room", probably with reference to the haughty attitude of the jailers.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɔːɡ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /moɹɡ/, [mo̞ɹɡ]

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /mɔː(ɹ)ɡ/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)ɡ

morgue (plural morgues)

1. (archaic) A supercilious or haughty attitude; arrogance.
   • 1855, Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, Dover, published 1964, page 34:

     They being newcomers, free from the western morgue so soon caught by Oriental Europeans, were particularly civil to me, even wishing to mix me a strong draught; but I was not so fortunate with all on board.

2. A building or room where dead bodies are kept before their proper burial or cremation, (now) particularly in legal and law enforcement contexts.

   Coordinate terms: deadhouse, mortuary

3. (dated, slang) The archive and background information division of a newspaper.
   • 1921 July 2, Joseph F. Kwapil, Fourth Estate, page 5:

     Librarian Talks of Newspaper Morgue

   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 109:

     Shand: get down to the Record and the Trib. See what they've got on Elliot in their morgues.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “morgue”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Inherited from Spanish morgue (“morgue”).

• Hyphenation: mor‧gue

morgue

1. morgue

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /mɔʁɡ/

• Audio (France (Saint-Maurice-de-Beynost)):

  (file)

• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

morgue f (plural morgues)

1. morgue, mortuary (place where dead bodies are stored)
2. morgue, coldness, disdain, arrogance (supercilious attitude)

• → Portuguese: morgue
• → Turkish: morg

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

• Hyphenation: mor‧gue

• Audio (Brazil):

  (file)

Borrowed from French morgue.^[1]

morgue f (plural morgues)

1. morgue

   Synonym: necrotério

morgue

1. inflection of morgar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• “morgue”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “morgue”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Borrowed from French morgue.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmoɾɡe/ [ˈmoɾ.ɣ̞e]
• Rhymes: -oɾɡe
• Syllabification: mor‧gue

morgue f (plural morgues)

1. morgue

• “morgue”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025