graveyard

From grave +‎ yard. Displaced Middle English cemitorie, cementorie (> English cemetery), from Old French cimitiere, from Medieval Latin cimitērium. Compare West Frisian begraafplak (“graveyard”), Dutch begraafplaats (“graveyard”), Norwegian gravplass (“graveyard”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹeɪvˌjɑɹd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

graveyard (plural graveyards)

1. A tract of land in which the dead are buried.
2. (figuratively, by extension) A final storage place for collections of things that are no longer useful or useable.
   1. (card games) The discard pile, in some trading card games.
      • 2006, John Kaufeld & ‎Jeremy Smith, Trading Card Games For Dummies, →ISBN, page 49:

        Certain cards place other cards here because such cards might have abilities deemed too strong if they sent them to the graveyard instead.

      • 2006, Michael J. Flores, Deckade: 10 Years of Decks, Thoughts, and Theory!, →ISBN, page 235:

        If you want to be tricky, though, Rapid Decay can be a flying elbow drop out of nowhere for a surprise win against graveyard manipulation decks; they will always see a Beetles coming, remember.

      • 2015, Kinetik Gaming, Magic the Gathering Game Guide (Unofficial), →ISBN:

        When a player does discard or use a card or when a creature also died or a spell gets destroyed, that card gets placed into the player's graveyard.

   2. (sports) A team where players are sent when they are not useful, or a team where players become useless if sent there.

• (land used for burial): see also Thesaurus:cemetery.