casket

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English casket, also kasket,^[2] of uncertain origin.^[3][4] Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Old French cassette (“little box”) in an altered form,^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} perhaps an Anglo-Norman one;^[7][8][4] Merriam-Webster gives the French word as Middle French.^[5] The French word is a diminutive of casse (“box, chest”),^[7][10][11] through Italian cassetta, a diminutive of cassa, from Latin capsa (“box”), the source of case.^[4][12] Barnhart and Etymonline also consider a diminutive of cask with -et,^[13][14] which the form suggests; the OED objects that casket is recorded before cask and has no matching sense in French or any other language,^[3] and Klein rejects that explanation.^[10] The OED also finds the change from cassette unproved, since the French word is recorded only from the 16th century and has no trace in English then.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small chest or case: 1461, in a list of goods in Rymer's Foedera,^[2][13] with further records in 1463–4 and 1467.^[2] The OED's first record is from 1467, of a small box for jewels, letters or other valuables.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The casket was at first a small, often richly decorated box for jewels, letters and other valuables.^[3][14] Shakespeare used it figuratively, in King John, of the body holding the soul.^[3][8] From 1828 or 1850 publishers gave the name to a collection of selected literary or musical pieces.^[14][3] In American English the word came to mean a coffin, probably as a euphemism:^[14] Etymonline finds it by 1832, and the OED and Barnhart from 1849, in a letter where the casket held "a dear friend", a figurative use of a box for something precious.^[14][3][13] Hawthorne in 1862 called it "a vile modern phrase".^[14] The verb, to put into a casket, is recorded from 1603.^[3]

Timeline

• 1461 – a small chest or case for valuables.^[2][13]
• 1603 – verb, to enclose in a casket.^[3]
• before 1616 – figurative use, in Shakespeare's King John.^[3]
• 1828 – a collection of literary or musical pieces.^[14]
• 1832 – a coffin, in American English.^[14] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1849, in a letter printed in Tarheel Talk.^[3][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small box or chest, often decorated, for jewels or other valuables: She kept her grandmother's rings in a silver casket.^[9][5][3]
2. (chiefly US) A coffin, especially an ornamented and lined one.^[9][5][6][3]
3. Something regarded as a container for something precious.^[5][3]

Verb

1. To put or enclose in a casket.^[5][6][3]

Word family

• casketlike

Related words

• cask
• cassette
• case
• capsule

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com