coffin
/ˈkɒfɪn
/noun
1A long, narrow box, typically of wood, in which a dead body is buried or cremated: they lowered her coffin into the ground...
- Dead persons are buried in coffins on the grounds of a church or are cremated and have their ashes buried in the graveyard.
- You may still find dead people being buried without coffins, simply because relatives cannot afford to buy one.
- Sofia took the bodies of her daughters, placed them in a coffin and buried them outside of town.
Synonyms
box, sarcophagus;
North American casket
humorous wooden overcoat
Archaeology cist
1.1 informal An old and unsafe aircraft or ship: a clapped-out one-gun flying coffin...
- This has been custom for as long as anyone who has ever lived upon this coffin of a ship can remember.
- The increased use of aeroplanes in warfare led to such terms as Beauey, biscuit bomber, and flying coffin.
- Protestors call the country's airplanes flying coffins.
verb (coffins, coffining, coffined) [with object]
Put (a dead body) in a coffin: the young man was coffined decently...
- While the embalmed heart was returned to the chest of the deceased, the other organs were separately packaged, coffined, and stored.
Origin
Middle English (in the general sense 'box, casket'): from Old French cofin 'little basket or case', from Latin cophinus (see coffer).
Coffin comes from the Old French word cofin meaning ‘a little basket’, and in medieval English could refer to a chest, casket, or even a pie. The sense ‘a box in which a dead body is buried or cremated’ dates from the early 16th century. A closely related word is coffer (Middle English)—both words share the same source, Greek kophinos ‘a basket’.