Sarcophagus

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: sar=coph=a=gus

CIDE DICTIONARY

Sarcophagus, n. [L., fr. Gr. sarkofa`gos, properly, eating flesh; sa`rx, sa`rkos, flesh + fagei^n to eat. Cf. Sarcasm.].

•  A species of limestone used among the Greeks for making coffins, which was so called because it consumed within a few weeks the flesh of bodies deposited in it. It is otherwise called lapis Assius, or Assian stone, and is said to have been found at Assos, a city of Lycia.  Holland.  [1913 Webster]
•  A coffin or chest-shaped tomb of the kind of stone described above; hence, any stone coffin.  [1913 Webster]
•  A stone shaped like a sarcophagus and placed by a grave as a memorial.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Sarcophagus, n. (pl. sarcophagi) a stone coffin, esp. one adorned with a sculpture or inscription.

Etymology

L f. Gk sarkophagos flesh-consuming (as SARCOMA, -phagos -eating)

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Sarcophagus

n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus known to modern obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter's art.

ROGET THESAURUS

Sarcophagus

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.