1. An article that is published about the life of a person who has recently died: Henry saw his friend's obituary in the local newspaper that morning which revealed his many achievements in the town before he passed away.
2. A death list or an inscription found on tombstones and in church records: Obiit is found on many tombstones, abbreviated as "ob.": "nasc. 1901, ob. 1933"; and the English word obituary comes from this Latin element.

3. Etymology: from 1706, "register of deaths"; from Middle Latin obituarius, "a record of the death of a person"; literally, "pertaining to death", from Latin obitus, "departure, a going to meet, an encounter" (a euphemism for "death"); from the stem of obire, "to go, to meet"; such as, in mortem obire "to meet death"; from ob, "to, toward" + ire, "to go".

Since the Latin verb obire means "to go to" or "to go over"; it is thought to be a reference to the River Styx and certainly it is no less euphemistic than our modern expression "to pass over".

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