page_title: Coffin
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Coffin / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: This is the side of an Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi. Date unknown.
context_page_description: A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation.
  The word took two different paths. Old French cofin, originally meaning basket, became coffin in English; its modern French form, couffin, means cradle. A distinction is often made between coffin and casket: the latter is generally understood to denote a four-sided or eight-sided funerary box, while a coffin is usually six-sided or twelve-sided funerary box. However, coffins having a one-piece side with a curve at the shoulder instead of a join are more commonly used in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: First attested in English in 1380, the word coffin derives from the Old French cofin, from Latin cophinus, which means basket, which is the latinisation of the Greek κόφινος (kophinos), basket. The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek ko-pi-na, written in Linear B syllabic script.
  Any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewelry, use of the word "casket" in this sense began as a euphemism introduced by the undertaker's trade. A distinction is commonly drawn between "coffins" and "caskets", using "coffin" to refer to a tapered hexagonal or octagonal (also considered to be anthropoidal in shape) box and "casket" to refer to a rectangular box, often with a split lid used for viewing the deceased as seen in the picture. Receptacles for cremated and cremulated human ashes (sometimes called cremains) are called urns.
caption: The side of an Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus
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