coffin
[kaw-fin, kof-in]
- the box or case in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial; casket.
- the part of a horse's foot containing the coffin bone.
- Printing.
- the bed of a platen press.
- the wooden frame around the bed of an early wooden press.
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- to put or enclose in or as in a coffin.
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Origin of coffin
1300–50; Middle English cofin < Old North French < Latin cophinus < Greek kóphinos a kind of basket
Coffin
[kaw-fin, kof-in]
- Levi,1798–1877, U.S. abolitionist leader.
- Robert P(eter) Tristram,1892–1955, U.S. poet, essayist, and biographer.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for coffin
Contemporary Examples
The family was taking some private moments for a closing of the coffin in keeping with Chinese ritual.
Well, the dwarfs took pity on him and gave him the coffin, and the prince had it carried to his castle.
So Little Snow White lay in the coffin for a long, long time but did not rot.
So he asked the dwarfs to sell him the coffin with the dead Little Snow White inside.
Then they wrote her name on the coffin in gold letters and added the family name.
Historical Examples
Then he called for his servants and ordered them to throw the coffin into the Nile.
Ancient ManHendrik Willem van Loon
So he lay down in the coffin but no sooner was he inside when bang!
Ancient ManHendrik Willem van Loon
Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises.
Riders to the SeaJ. M. Synge
They left it on her breast, in the coffin, and it went with that guilty woman to the tomb.
Other Tales and SketchesNathaniel Hawthorne
Else why should the bearers stagger, as they tremulously uphold the coffin?
Main StreetNathaniel Hawthorne
coffin
- a box in which a corpse is buried or cremated
- the part of a horse's foot that contains the coffin bone
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- (tr) to place in or as in a coffin
- engineering another name for flask (def. 6)
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French cofin, from Latin cophinus basket; see coffer
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for coffin
n.
early 14c., "chest or box for valuables," from Old French cofin "sarcophagus," earlier "basket, coffer" (12c., Modern French coffin), from Latin cophinus "basket, hamper" (source of Italian cafano, Spanish cuebano "basket"), from Greek kophinos "a basket," of uncertain origin.
Funeral sense in English is 1520s; before that it was the literal Latin one and had also a meaning of "pie crust" (late 14c.). Meaning "vehicle regarded as unsafe" is from 1830s. Coffin nail "cigarette" is slang from 1880; nail in (one's) coffin "thing that contributes to one's death" is from 1792.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper