# coffin corner
## English
### Noun

coffin corner (plural coffin corners)
* (World War II) The position in a formation of ships or bombers that is most exposed to enemy fire.
** 1943, William Harrison Fetridge, The navy reader, page 207:We'd though that because of the TNT we might be somewhere in the middle. But we got the rear corner on the starboard side. They call that the coffin corner.
** 1945, National 4-H Club News - Volumes 23-24, page 16:Suddenly we spotted her coming directly for the Spencer, since the Spencer was the last ship in the column next to the sun ('coffin corner,' it is called.)
** 1995, Robert L. Thompson, Flying in coffin corner, page 278:Forgetting he was an officer, I shot back, "Friend, you didn't draw coffin corner because of me, I drew it because of you!"
** 1998, Dr. James G. Bennett, The Rohna Disaster: World War Ii's Secret Tragedy, page 87:However, most survivors remembered it as positioned in "coffin corner", where it was especially vulnerable to attack from the air or by submarine, thus the name.
** 2007, John Nichol, Tony Rennell, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War, 1944-45:He had been rostered in the safest position—high element number three—but now when he came to take off he was back in low number two—”coffin corner.”
** 2009, Harry X. Ford, Mud, Wings, and Wire, page 169:Also, at a briefing that morning, we learned much to our dismay that once again our squadron's position in the formation was to be at the tail end of the lower left echelon, the infamous “coffin corner."
** 2010, Kenneth V. Horrigan, Coffin Corner: The True Story of Kenneth Horrigan:Each time we had a flight, we were assigned a different spot in the formation. Our crew members knew that, eventually, we would be assigned the “coffin corner.”
* (aviation) A situation in which the aircraft cannot increase or decrease its airspeed without stalling or buffeting.
** 1909, Flight International - Volume 64, page 700:Here, in fact, is the so-called “coffin corner,” with the pilot juggling the throttle betwixt buffeting and highspeed stalling.
** 2004, Laurence R. Newcome, Unmanned Aviation: A Brief History of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles:The U-2 had to fly in the “coffin corner” of its flight envelope, one knot from stalling, one knot from overstressing the airframe, and one SA-2 from an international incident.
** 2018, Rolf Richardson, Coffin Corner:Coffin corner continues to trap the unwary, as witness the losses of Air France 447 over the Atlantic in 2009 and Air Asia 8501 over the Java Sea in 2014.
* (American football) A corner of the field formed by the opponent's goal line and a sideline, into which a punt is often aimed in order to force the opposition to play close to their goal line.
** 2010, Jack Cavanaugh, The Gipper: George Gipp, Knute Rockne, and the Dramatic Rise of Notre Dame Football:During that second half, Carideo, one of Notre Dame's greatest punters, repeatedly kept SMU bottled up deep in its own territory on “coffin-corner” punts which invariably went out of bounds inside the Mustangs' 10-yard line.
** 2014 November 7, “Rugby-style kicking helps Chiefs' Colquitt take punting to another level”, in Kansas City Star:Kick it hard, kick it deep, and aim for the coffin corner when close enough to the opponents' end zone.
** 2019 November 28, Daniel Austin, “Rob Maver announces retirement after 10 seasons with Stampeders”, in Calgary Herald:His ability to find the coffin corner pinned countless opponents deep in their own zone, and even when he didn’t have the big numbers that some other CFL punters did, he was always considered to be one of the very best directional punters in the league.
** 2019 December 13, “Higgins gets third All-America honor”, in The Marshall Democrat-News:During his career, Higgins punted 135 times for an average of 43.5 yards, with 40 in the "coffin corner".
* Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see coffin,‎ corner.
** 2011, Sita Brahmachari, Artichoke Hearts:Last of all she paints the little dog with his leg cocked over the coffin corner.