coffer

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“
When I had paid my examination and registration fees the coffer was absolutely empty, and though, no doubt, a medical diploma contains--to use Johnson's phrase--the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, there is a vast difference in practice between the potential and the actual.

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun A strongbox.
  2. noun Financial resources; funds.
  3. noun A treasury: stole money from the union coffers.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (8)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • But the necessary sum was in his coffer, and there was no question that his tenure was done. —  Carey, Jaqueline - Kushiel's Dart orig
  • My fingertips grazed the gold fretwork adorning the coffer, and I succeeded in dragging it within reach. —  Carey, Jaqueline - Kushiel's Dart orig
  • In such a case as this they make what is called a coffer dam, which is a sort of dam, or dike, made by driving piles close together into the ground, in two rows, at a little distance apart, and then filling up the space between them with earth and gravel. —  Rollo in London
  • She became a perfect nightmare to the man, much the same as the little old woman of the coffer was to Abudah, the merchant in the fantastic eastern tale; but, unlike that pertinacious beldam, she apparently had no message to deliver. —  The Bishop's Secret
  • "Put it with the others--or stay: whence came it Out of an ancient coffer, an't like your Ladyship," said Blanche, "that hath been longer in the castle than I I should think so," returned the Countess. —  The Well in the Desert An Old Legend of the House of Arundel
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English cofre, from Old French, alteration of *cofne, from Latin cophinus, basket; see coffin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English cofer, from Middle English cofer, cofre, a chest, especially for money, ark, rarely coffin (later D. G. koffer = Danish kuffert = Swedish koffert), from Old French cofre, French coffre (= Provencal Spanish Portuguese cofre), a modification of older cofin, a chest, later English coffin, q. v. For the change of the second syllable, cf. order, from French ordre, from Latin ordo (ordin-).
  2. from coffer, n.
 

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/ˈkɑfər/
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