coffin

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkɒfɪn/ (UK); /ˈkɔfɪn/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

inherited from Middle English cofin (“basket, box”),^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old Northern French cofin (“sarcophagus; earlier basket, coffer”),^[5][6][1] from Latin cophinus (“basket”),^{[2][3][6][5][1]} from Ancient Greek κόφινος (kóphinos, “basket”),^[2][6][5] of uncertain origin.^[6][5] It is a doublet of coffer.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A chest, case or box, especially for valuables, in the early 14th century,^[5][7][6] and also a basket, translating Latin cophinus.^[7]

Semantic evolution

For two centuries a coffin could hold anything; its main secondary sense was culinary, a pastry crust or mould for a pie (late 14th century).^[5][7] Only in the 1520s did it come to mean the box in which a body is buried,^[5][7][6][3] displacing the native Old English word þrūh.^[1] The deathly sense then produced figurative uses: an unseaworthy ship (1830s),^[5][7] a nail in one's coffin (by 1792),^[5] and coffin nail for a cigarette (1880).^[5]

Timeline

• before 1338 – “chest, case, box”.^[6][7]
• c. 1380 – “basket”.^[7]
• c. 1420 – “pie crust”.^[7]
• 1525 – “box for burying a corpse”.^[7][6][3]
• 1564 – verb, “to put in a coffin”.^[7][3]
• 1792 – nail in one's coffin.^[5]
• 1880 – coffin nail, “cigarette”.^[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A box in which a dead body is buried.
2. The horny part of a horse's hoof.
3. (obsolete) A pastry case for a pie.

Verb

1. To place in a coffin, or enclose as if in one.

Word family

• coffinless
• uncoffin
• coffin bone
• coffin corner
• coffin nail

Related words

• coffer
• casket
• sarcophagus
• hearse

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. [1] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press