Coffin

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: cof=fin

CIDE DICTIONARY

Coffin, n. [OE., a basket, receptacle, OF. cofin, fr. L. cophinus. See Coffer, n.].

•  The case in which a dead human body is inclosed for burial.  [1913 Webster]

  "They embalmed him [Joseph], and he was put in a coffin."  [1913 Webster]
•  A basket.  Wyclif (matt. xiv. 20).  [1913 Webster]
•  A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie.  [1913 Webster]

  "Of the paste a coffin I will rear."  [1913 Webster]
•  A conical paper bag, used by grocers.  Nares.  [1913 Webster]
•  The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone.  [1913 Webster]

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. -- Coffin joint, the joint next above the coffin bone.

Coffin, v. t. 

 To inclose in, or as in, a coffin.  [1913 Webster]
"Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffined home?"  [1913 Webster]
"Devotion is not coffined in a cell."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Coffin, n. & v.
--n.
1 a long narrow usu. wooden box in which a corpse is buried or cremated.
2 the part of a horse's hoof below the coronet.
--v.tr. (coffined, coffining) put in a coffin.

Idiom

coffin-bone a bone in a horse's hoof. coffin corner US Football the corner between the goal-line and sideline. coffin-joint the joint at the top of a horse's hoof. coffin-nail sl. a cigarette.

Etymology

ME f. OF cof(f)in little basket etc. f. L cophinus: see COFFER

ROGET THESAURUS

Coffin

Interment

N interment, burial, sepulture, inhumation, obsequies, exequies, funeral, wake, pyre, funeral pile, cremation, funeral, funeral rite, funeral solemnity, kneel, passing bell, tolling, dirge, cypress, orbit, dead march, muffled drum, mortuary, undertaker, mute, elegy, funeral, funeral oration, funeral sermon, epitaph, graveclothes, shroud, winding sheet, cerecloth, cerement, coffin, shell, sarcophagus, urn, pall, bier, hearse, catafalque, cinerary urn, grave, pit, sepulcher, tomb, vault, crypt, catacomb, mausoleum, Golgotha, house of death, narrow house, cemetery, necropolis, burial place, burial ground, grave yard, church yard, God's acre, tope, cromlech, barrow, tumulus, cairn, ossuary, bone house, charnel house, dead house, morgue, lich gate, burning ghat, crematorium, crematory, dokhma, mastaba, potter's field, stupa, Tower of Silence, sexton, gravedigger, monument, cenotaph, shrine, grave stone, head stone, tomb stone, memento mori, hatchment, stone, obelisk, pyramid, exhumation, disinterment, necropsy, autopsy, post mortem examination, zoothapsis, burried, burial, funereal, funebrial, mortuary, sepulchral, cinerary, elegiac, necroscopic, in memoriam, post obit, post mortem, beneath the sod, hic jacet, ci-git, RIP, requiescat in pace, the lone couch of his everlasting sleep, without a grave- unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown, in the dark union of insensate dust, the deep cold shadow of the tomb, Special Vitality.