Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun sarcastic A monument made of flowers in cellophane wrappers laid by the public to honour the death of a famous person they have never met.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Blend of cellophane and cenotaph.

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Examples

  • It is almost exactly a decade since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, transformed the country into what Private Eye would call a ‘cellotaph’: grottos everywhere, great and small, full of cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers, teddy bears, candles, the scenes of unrestrained emotion and group trauma the like of which had never been seen before.

    The great royal fightback 2007

  • It is almost exactly a decade since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, transformed the country into what Private Eye would call a ‘cellotaph’: grottos everywhere, great and small, full of cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers, teddy bears, candles, the scenes of unrestrained emotion and group trauma the like of which had never been seen before.

    The great royal fightback 2007

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