Choose the correct one-word substitution for: ‘A building where dead bodies are kept temporarily’.

Correct — D. A mortuary is a room or building where dead bodies are kept until burial or cremation. It is also called a morgue.

The trigger in the definition is temporarily: the body waits there before it goes somewhere else.

That waiting place is the mortuary → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Sanctuary — A sanctuary is a holy place or a refuge, for people or for wildlife. It has nothing to do with keeping dead bodies.
• (b)
  Sepulcher — A sepulcher (British sepulchre) is a tomb, a permanent burial place often cut in rock or built of stone. The definition says the body is kept temporarily, which a tomb is not.
• (c)
  Crematorium — A crematorium is where dead bodies are burned. It disposes of a body rather than keeping it, so it fails the definition's word kept.

Many words about death carry the Latin stem mort-, from mors, 'death', and mori, 'to die': mortal, mortality, post-mortem and mortuary.

Four places are easy to confuse. A mortuary or morgue holds bodies for a time. A crematorium burns them. A sepulcher or tomb holds them for good. A cemetery is a burial ground.

The definition's time word, temporarily, is what separates the mortuary from the tomb.

Key facts

• Mortuary, also morgue: a room or building where dead bodies are kept until burial or cremation.
• Sepulcher, British sepulchre: a tomb, a permanent burial place.
• Crematorium: a place where dead bodies are burned.
• Mortuary, mortal and post-mortem share the Latin stem mort-, linked to death.

Common traps

• Choosing sepulcher because it is linked with the dead, and missing the word temporarily
• Choosing crematorium, a place that disposes of bodies rather than keeping them

No directly related past PYQ was found.