casket
Americannoun
-
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.
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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:
A UK inquest has been opened into the death of the man in Shobahana Patel's casket, who still hasn't been identified.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
Traditional leaders and some locals wanted to burn the compromised casket.
From Barron's ● May 24, 2026
Women carry the casket of Razieh Zamani, a 34-year-old teacher at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school, toward the Minab cemetery.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
After nine days in the capital, they returned to Savannah on a large Airbus jet carrying Sam’s casket, accompanied by more than a dozen PSA pilots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026
Before being placed in a casket by the undertaker in Elberon, his body was sliced one final time.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
In Tehran, a flatbed truck, decorated with intricate latticework and Arabic Islamic script, carried five caskets, painted in the green, red and white of Iran's flag, including the smallest for Khamenei's 14-month-old granddaughter Zara.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
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
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
They finished loading the caskets, and the major drove his jeep around the front of the plane and signaled the officer with the new guys.
From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers
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.
