coffin

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“
The nail in the coffin will be a tax hike ........

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Definitions (21)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun An oblong box in which a corpse is buried.
  2. noun The horny part of a horse's hoof.
  3. transitive verb To place in or as if in a coffin.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (14)

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

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • There we laid them down: the coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood; a black mantle served for a pall; and over it we placed a helmet and a sword, and a crown of laurel. —  Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6)
  • The nail in the coffin was his quirky view of physical evolution. —  Omni: October 1993
  • Inside the coffin was a figure so bound and taped that it could not have moved even if it had been conscious. —  091 - The Purple Dragon
  • The soil that I threw down on the coffin was as much ice and snow as earth. —  forestmage
  • Heaped up about the coffin were the jeweled crosses and orders which had been sent him by the various monarchs of the world, and, in the midst of them, the crowns and scepters of all the countries he had ruled, among them those of Siberia, Astrakhan, Kazan, Poland, the Crimea, and, above all, the great crown and scepter of the empire. —  Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White, V1
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This word has been looked up 103 times.

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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English cofin, basket, from Old French, from Latin cophinus, from Greek kophinos.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English also cophin (def. 3), after the L.; from Middle English cofin, coffin, a basket, a pie-crust (the sense of ‘chest in which a dead human body is buried,’ for which Middle English cofer is found, does not belong to cofin in Middle English), from Old French cofin = Provencal cofin = Spanish cofin, a basket, = Italian cofano, formerly also cofino, coffino, a basket, trunk, coffer, from Latin cophinus, a basket, from Greek κόφινος, a basket. See coffer, the same word in other Middle English and modern senses.
  2. from coffin, n.
 

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/ˈkɔfɪn/
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