Word.ws English Dictionary

catafalque

/ˈkatəfalk/

catafalque noun: a platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate.

catafalque: a platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate
Image: RebelAt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

catafalque (plural catafalques)

  1. A platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate.
    • Until noon, the hour of the funeral, crowds continued to file by the plain pine coffin on its plain flower-covered catafalque.1942, Maurine Whipple, The Giant Joshua
    • After another brief funeral rite at Tzu Hu, the presidential casket was laid on the catafalque in the central hall of a temporary “mausoleum” and sealed with marble slabs. There, the body of President Chiang will rest pending permanent burial in the mainland after its recovery.1976, “China Yearbook 1976”, in The Hallmark, Taipei: China Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 2
    Synonyms:
    catafalco

catafalque meaning in Tamil

catafalque in Tamil

பாடை

Synonyms of catafalque

Forms of catafalque

pluralcatafalques

Origin of catafalque

Borrowed from French catafalque, from Italian catafalco, from Vulgar Latin *catafalicum, from Ancient Greek κατά (katá, “down”) + Latin fala (“scaffolding, wooden siege tower”), which is from Etruscan. Also influenced scaffold.

Questions about catafalque

What does catafalque mean?
Catafalque means a platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate.
What is catafalque in Tamil?
Catafalque in Tamil is பாடை. See Catafalque meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is catafalque?
Catafalque is a noun.
How do you pronounce catafalque?
Catafalque is pronounced /ˈkatəfalk/ (UK).
What is the plural of catafalque?
The plural of catafalque is catafalques.

Words near catafalque in the dictionary

  1. Catadupa
  2. catadupe
  3. catadupes
  4. catafalco
  5. catafalcoes
  6. catafalque
  7. catafalques
  8. catafront
  9. catafronts
  10. Catagbacan
  11. catagelophobia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catafalque (page history and authors); catafalque (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-catafalque.wav.

Cite this entry: “catafalque.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catafalque. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.