Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An oblong box in which a corpse is buried.
- n. The horny part of a horse's hoof.
- v. To place in or as if in a coffin.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A basket.
- n. A mold of paste for a pie; the crust of a pie. See custard-coffin.
- n. The chest, box, or case; in which a dead human body is placed for burial: usually made of wood or lead, but sometimes of stone or iron, or even of glass.
- n. A paper twisted in the form of cone, used as a bag by grocers; a cap or cornet.
- n. In farriery, the hollow part of a horse's hoof, or the whole hoof below the coronet, including the coffin-bone.
- n. In printing: The wooden frame which inclosed the stone or bed of the old form of hand printing-press.
- n. The frame which incloses an imposing-stone.
- n. In milling, one of the sockets in the eye of the runner, which receives the end of the driver.
- n. In mining, old workings open to the day; where the ore was raised to the surface by the cast-after-cast method.
- n. In ceramics, same as cassette.
- To cover with paste or crust. See coffin, n., 2; also extract under baked-meat, 2.
- To put or inclose in a coffin, as a corpse; hence, figuratively, to confine; shut up.
Wiktionary
- n. An oblong closed box in which a dead person is buried.
- n. obsolete A basket.
- n. A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie.
- n. obsolete A conical paper bag, used by grocers.
- n. The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone. Coffin bone, the foot bone of the horse and allied animals, inclosed within the hoof, and corresponding to the third phalanx of the middle finger, or toe, of most mammals.
- v. transitive To place in a coffin.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The case in which a dead human body is inclosed for burial.
- n. obsolete A basket.
- n. A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie.
- n. obsolete A conical paper bag, used by grocers.
- n. (Far.) The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone.
- v. To inclose in, or as in, a coffin.
WordNet 3.0
- v. place into a coffin
- n. box in which a corpse is buried or cremated
Etymologies
- Middle English cofin, basket, from Old French, from Latin cophinus, from Greek kophinos. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The nail in your coffin is the arbitration system run by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).”
The Huffington Post: Dan Solin: John Elway's Tackle Masks a Bigger Scandal
“Dracula decides to leave and go on vacation to New York City, but his coffin is accidentally sent to Harlem.”
“In Blake, the coffin is his "Printing House in Hell”
“Ill say it again, the person in the coffin is the person that takes them off the island, and the first person we will see next season.”
“Also in the coffin is a small bag of commemorative medals issued over the course of his pontificate and a sealed document with a description of the pope's life, in Latin.”
“But their grandmother said there was too much dew on the grass for them to go down through the meadows that morning; so they borrowed a piece of black cambric from Sally, and spread it over the little box, which they called the coffin; and Frank darkened the windows, as he remembered they had done when his mother died.”
“At the head of the coffin is a great white turban of the old pattern, covered with a dark green and silver scarf.”
“The difference is that the Spanish Inquisition was willing to torture using methods that leave marks on the body, while the US chose to use methods that do not cut the skin: cold rooms; sleep deprivation through noise and bright lights; forced standing; “stress positions;” smashing people into wooden walls (not into concrete, which breaks bones); confinement in coffin-like boxes; and the water torture. southpaw says:”
“Well, showing a dead body in a coffin is certainly one way of getting my attention.”
“One was Rodrigo Cortes 'suspenseful Buried; the other was Matt Reeves'Let Me In, the remake of the 2008 Swedish vampire movie, Let the Right One In. In Buried, Ryan Reynolds gives a tour de force performance as a guy who is kidnapped and wakes up in coffin, buried underground.”
The Huffington Post: Marshall Fine: What Would Movies Do Without Cell Phones?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘coffin’.
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Farriery
"The art of shoeing horses; also, the art of treating the diseases of horses, now technically called veterinary surgery."
--Century Dictionaryfarriery, crapaudine, grease, interference, cloy, buttress, grape, grapes, farrier, horseshoe, fullering, calk and 27 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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No Dearth of Deadly Designations
catafalque, cenotaph, necropolis, sepulcher, sarcophagus, mausoleum, reliquary, ossuary, necrosis, cadaver, cadaverous, pyre and 103 more...
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aliko's Words
deli, turkey, bodrum, deniz, sunny, seks, tatil, hava, zeeman, captain, kapitein, kaptan and 256 more...
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nighthawks at the diner
being words from Tom Waits songs.
vinyl, cigarette, rhinestone, naugahyde, margarine, vermouth, gin, platinum, wurlitzer, menthol, oldsmobile, asphalt and 90 more...
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Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
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kant's Words
mandrágora, doppelganger, sinestesia, baladí, adriático, chanson, correveidile, angster, dèja vu, otredad, grasshopper, republic and 1074 more...
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NihonGoose's Words
colander, doily, nacre, mandible, carapace, glutinous, penumbral, skein, mollify, colloquial, sanguine, chagrin and 118 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
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Vocabulary 1d
lista wyrazów, zwrotów i idiomów dla klasy 1d
scaffolding, have a sweet tooth, wagon, hurdles, wet blanket, giggle, full of beans, cheesy, cheesecake, be at your beck a..., mantlepiece, coffee table and 6 more...
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trapeze
amazon, fish, flamingo, mermaid, angel, eagle, crucifix, bow, arrow, secretary, schooner, gazelle and 14 more...
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Violins
scroll, neck, bridge, fingerboard, tailpiece, shoulder rest, chin rest, pegs, strings, body, f-holes, sound post and 29 more...
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fantasy
masquerade, spiral, faerie, gnome, twinkle, aurora, haunt, gargoyle, passion, starshine, gargoyle, crimson and 61 more...
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Ashes to Ashes
crypt, tomb, grave, sepulcher, vault, catacomb, mausoleum, cinerarium, ossuary, urn, headstone, barrow and 20 more...
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mortal remains
crematorium, funeral, columbarium, mausoleum, cemetery, sepulchre, mortuary, mortician, eulogy, exsanguination, cortege, crypt and 53 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for coffin.

76boots I was wondering what the difference is between a coffin and a casket.... Mar 9, 2012
oroboros "Strange Discovery" Jul 30, 2009
oroboros Oblong hexagonal container (wide at the shoulders) as opposed to a casket which is a rectangular box. Jul 11, 2009