A vehicle used to carry a dead body in a coffin to a funeral or cemetery.
From Middle French 'herse,' which originally meant a harrow (a farm tool with spikes). The connection is that a hearse was ornately decorated with candles in a pattern resembling a harrow's spikes, and the name stuck.
A hearse is named after a farm tool—it's called a hearse because medieval funeral carriages were decorated with candles arranged in the same spiked pattern as a harrow, and that agricultural metaphor is why we have this dark equipment named after farming.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.