noun
morgue
mawg
noun
1
A building or room, especially at a hospital or under police authority, where dead bodies are kept until identification or burial.
"The body was taken to the morgue for a formal identification."
"Detectives visited the morgue to review the coroner's report."
2
A newspaper's archive of old clippings, photos, and background files kept for reference.
"The reporter dug through the paper's morgue for photos from the original story."
How to Use Morgue
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishMost often means the place bodies are stored before burial; the newspaper-archive meaning is an older, less common extension.
Common pairings
taken to the morgue
city morgue
the paper's morgue
Word Forms
morgues plural
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The body was taken to the _____ for a formal identification.
Etymology
From French morgue. The newspaper sense grew out of the mortuary sense, by way of an old meaning "a place where things sit unclaimed and unused."