: a prehistoric monument of two or more upright stones supporting a horizontal stone slab found especially in Britain and France and thought to be a tomb
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She’s squatted on her heels within a tight copse of five or six stones leaning like dolmens, chin on chest as if an engrossing thing lies between her feet.—Literary Hub, 28 Aug. 2025 And sometimes the larger dolmens did seem to be roofs, with stones and earth piled around them to form what might have been a tomb.—Rosanna Warren, Harper's Magazine, 25 June 2024 Many features found elsewhere in megalithic Stone Age structures can be found here, like dolmens — where two or more standing stones have a single large stone lying on top of them.—Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 27 Mar. 2024 Lundbye depicts dolmens in profile repeatedly and, in one watercolor drawing, from the inside.—Holland Cotter, New York Times, 23 Mar. 2023 There are dolmens hidden out here in the jagged ramble and sobbing wind, ancient monoliths built by pre-historic farmers.—Josh Condon, Robb Report, 5 Mar. 2023
Word History
Etymology
French, probably modification of Cornish tolmen, from tol hole + men stone
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