Cremation is the act — and often the funeral ceremony — of burning a dead body until it becomes ashes, rather than burying it. The word names the practice and the event, not the building and not the ashes themselves. People say “the cremation is on Friday” for the occasion, and “cremation is common here” for the custom. It is formal and serious. Though actually, how people feel about it is not tidy: for some families it is practical and normal; for others it is painful or against belief. A short gloss may make this look like a verb. It is not. The verb is cremate; cremation is the burning and the rite around it.