coffin

== English == === Alternative forms === cophin, coffyn (archaic) === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɒfɪn/ (US) IPA(key): /ˈkɔfɪn/ (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /ˈkɑfɪn/ Rhymes: -ɒfɪn, -ɒfən Homophone: coughing (with g-dropping) === Etymology 1 === From Middle English coffyn, from Old Northern French cofin (“sarcophagus", earlier "basket, coffer”), from Latin cophinus (“basket”), a loanword from Ancient Greek κόφινος (kóphinos, “a basket”). Doublet of coffer. Displaced native Old English þrūh. ==== Noun ==== coffin (plural coffins) A closed box in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial. Synonyms: (US) casket, pine box 20 May 2018, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, Is Meghan Markle the American the royals have needed all along? I’d always found the royals a cold proposition, Diana excepted, but the sight of that little boy, his head bent, not daring to look up at his mother’s coffin in front of him was, and remains, genuinely heartbreaking. (cartomancy) The eighth Lenormand card. (archaic) A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie. (obsolete) A conical paper bag, used by grocers. The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone. A storage container for nuclear waste. A combination fence obstacle where the horse jumps a set of rails, strides downhill to a ditch, and then goes back uphill to another jump. ===== Synonyms ===== (box for a dead body): wooden coat, wooden kimono, wooden overcoat, wooden surtout, pine box (euphemistic) ===== Hyponyms ===== (box for a dead body): casket (upholstered) ===== Derived terms ===== ===== Translations ===== ==== Verb ==== coffin (third-person singular simple present coffins, present participle coffining, simple past and past participle coffined) (transitive) To place in a coffin. ===== Synonyms ===== encoffin ===== Translations ===== === Etymology 2 === Borrowed from Cornish koghyn (“exploratory trench”), with spelling likely influenced by etymology 1. ==== Noun ==== coffin (plural coffins) (Cornwall) (mining, obsolete) An exploratory trench used when first digging a mine. (by extension) A deep ditch. ===== Alternative forms ===== coffan, coffen, goffin, goffan, goffen === Further reading === coffin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia == Middle English == === Noun === coffin (plural) alternative form of coffyn