catafalque

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“
The bed looked like a catafalque, the candles like funeral torches, and the whole place breathed the magnificent discomfort of royalty, and seemed hardly intended for a human habitation Dolores barely glanced at it all, as her companion locked the first door and led her on to the next room.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A decorated platform or framework on which a coffin rests in state during a funeral.
  2. noun Roman Catholic Church A coffin-shaped structure draped with a pall, used to represent the corpse at a requiem Mass celebrated after the burial.

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Examples (50)

  • If there ever was a man after death fit to lie on Abraham Lincoln's catafalque, and near the marble representation of Alexander Hamilton, and under Crawford's splendid statue of Freedom, with a sheathed sword in her hand and a wreath of stars on her brow, and to be carried out amid the acclamation and conclamation of a grateful people, that man was Henry Wilson. —  Brave Men and Women
  • A magnificent canopy of cloth of gold surmounted the bier, and on either side of the catafalque were placed two temporary altars; ten others having been erected in the state-gallery, at which the bishops and the cures of the several metropolitan parishes daily performed six high and one hundred low masses. —  The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2
  • Their imperfect surfaces reflect the lofty catafalque, an open canopy of solemn alapaca, lined with tasteful satin of creamish lead, looped at the curving roof and dropping to the four corners in half transparent tapestry. —  THE LIFE, CRIME, AND CAPTURE OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH
  • Some places on the continent the catafalque was rarely taken down and black rather than green was the default colour of vestments. —  Tea at Trianon
  • He has not come to the bottom of that curious catafalque, to go away again without seeing what is above. —  Gaspar the Gaucho A Story of the Gran Chaco
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, from Italian catafalco.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also in Italian form catafalco; = D. Danish G. katafalk = Russian katafalkŭ, from French catafalque, from Italian catafalco, a funeral canopy, stage, scaffold, = Spanish Portuguese catafalco, a funeral canopy, = Provencal cadafalc = Old French escafaut, *escafalt (later English scaffold), French échafaud (Middle Latin catafaltus, etc.), a scaffold: see scaffold, which is a doublet of catafalque.
 

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/ˈkætəfælk/
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