casket
Americannoun
-
caskets
plural
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a coffin.
-
a small chest or box, as for jewels.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
a small box or chest for valuables, esp jewels
-
another name for coffin
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of casket
1425–75; late Middle English < ?
Explanation
A casket is a coffin, or a box in which the body of a dead person is buried. Some funeral traditions include a chance for mourners to see the deceased in the casket before burial. Most caskets are made of wood — some plain, and others more ornamental. Many caskets are buried in cemeteries, although others are cremated, or burned to ash, depending on religious and personal preferences. You can also use the word casket to mean "small box," particularly a box for jewelry or other precious items, and this is the word's earliest meaning, from the Old French cassette, a diminutive form of case.
Vocabulary lists containing casket
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That music accompanies us from birth to death is underscored by the giant guitar-case-shaped casket, “For a Musician,” produced by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe in 2025.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Video footage showed mourners pushing and shoving each other to get close to the casket as it was carried by hand through the mausoleum's halls.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
On Wednesday, Khamenei’s casket will be transported to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, where Iran supports numerous armed groups, and where many among the Shia majority population regard Khamenei as a religious authority.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
When his older brother was killed in Korea and his father put the casket by the Christmas tree …
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2026
A magnificent spray of white carnations, red roses, lavender, and baby’s breath blanketed the length of Great-great-aunt Florentine’s closed casket.
From Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
State media showed five simple caskets wrapped in Iranian flags inside the mosque, including a small one containing the body of Khamenei’s 1-year-old granddaughter who Iran said was killed in the airstrike alongside him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Hughes himself lay in one of the caskets to experience it.
From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2026
When Old Glory was planted on the moon in 1969, it had already draped the caskets of tens of thousands of soldiers who died in Vietnam.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2026
Indian authorities said an inscription on one of the caskets unearthed with the treasure confirmed the contents -- which include bone fragments -- as "relics of the Buddha".
From Barron's ● Jan. 3, 2026
Aluminum shipping caskets containing bodies are stacked outside the US Army Mortuary facility at Tan Sun Nhut Airbase near Saigon, 1969.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
