From grave +‎ yard. 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.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:cemetery

2. (figuratively, by extension) A final storage place for collections of things that are no longer useful or useable.
   • 1971, Steve Goodman, “City of New Orleans”, in Steve Goodman:

     They're all out on this southbound odyssey / And the train pulls out of Kankakee / Rolls past the houses, farms, and fields / Passing towns that have no name / And freight yards full of old black men / And the graveyards of rusted automobiles.

   1. (collectible 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.
3. (attributively) A period very early in the morning in which there is very little activity.

   graveyard shift, graveyard slot, graveyard watch

   • 2024 January 14, Luke Winkie, “A Whale of a Time”, in Slate‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The Slate Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 January 2024:

     Her husband, of course, came dressed as Herman Melville.) She's a veteran of these marathons, and warned me about the forthcoming graveyard stretch—when Moby-Dick melds with the altered brain chemistry of sleep deprivation.

4. (US, slang) Synonym of suicide (“beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain”).