coffin

UK/ˈkɒfɪn//ˈkɔfɪn/

coffin noun: a closed box in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial.

Image: Gmihail, CC BY-SA 3.0 rs, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

coffin (plural coffins)

A closed box in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial.
- […] Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, / Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, / Night and day journeys a coffin.1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems
- 20 May 2018, Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, Is Meghan Markle the American the royals have needed all along?
  I’d always found the royals a cold proposition, Diana excepted, but the sight of that little boy, his head bent, not daring to look up at his mother’s coffin in front of him was, and...
Synonyms:

casket, pine box, wooden coat, wooden kimono, wooden overcoat, wooden surtout
The eighth Lenormand card.
(archaic) A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie.
- Of the paste a coffin I will rear.c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- Take your mallard and put him into the iuyce of the sayde Onyons, and season him with pepper, and salte, cloues and mace, then put your Mallard into the coffin with the saide iuyce of the onyons.1596, The Good Huswife's Jewell
(obsolete) A conical paper bag, used by grocers.
- The smoke of this Hearbe, which they receaue at the mouth through certaine coffins, suche as the Grocers do vse to put in their Spices.1577, John Frampton, Joyful News out of the New Found World
The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone.
A storage container for nuclear waste.
A combination fence obstacle where the horse jumps a set of rails, strides downhill to a ditch, and then goes back uphill to another jump.

Verb

coffin (third-person singular simple present coffins, present participle coffining, simple past and past participle coffined)

(transitive) To place in a coffin.
- Indians do not hinder the progress of their dead by embalming or tight coffining.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 19, in Klee Wyck
- The chest in which she is coffined washes ashore and is brought to the Lord Cerimon.2007, Barbara Everett, “Making and Breaking in Shakespeare's Romances”, in London Review of Books, 29:6, page 21
Synonyms:

encoffin

Noun (2)

coffin (plural coffins)

(Cornwall, obsolete) An exploratory trench used when first digging a mine.
(Cornwall, broadly) A deep ditch.

Proper noun capitalized: Coffin

Coffin (plural Coffins)

A surname.

coffin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

coffin in Hindi

box in which a dead person is buried: ताबूत tābūt

coffin in Tamil

box in which a dead person is buried: சவப்பெட்டி cavappeṭṭi

coffin in Marathi

box in which a dead person is buried: शवपेटी śavpeṭī, ताबूत tābūt, शवपेटिका śavpeṭikā

coffin in Urdu

box in which a dead person is buried: تابُوت tābūt

More languagesFewer languages

coffin in Bengali: শবাধার śobadhar
coffin in Telugu: శవపేటిక śavapēṭika
coffin in Malayalam: ശവപ്പെട്ടി śavappeṭṭi
coffin in Kannada: ಹೆಣದ ಪೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆ, ಶವಸಂಪುಟ, ಹೆಣಪೆಟ್ಟಿಗೆ
coffin in Punjabi: ਕਫ਼ਨ kafan, ਤਾਬੂਤ tābūt
coffin in Gujarati: પેટી peṭī, કોફિન kophin
coffin in Sanskrit: वृक्ष vṛkṣá, चमू camū́
coffin in Nepali: टाँड ṭā̃ḍ
coffin in Pashto: تابوت tābut
coffin in Tagalog: kabaong, ataul
coffin in Arabic: تَابُوت tābūt
coffin in Malay: keranda
coffin in Indonesian: peti jenazah, peti mati, peti mayat, keranda
coffin in Thai: โลง loong, โลงศพ loong-sòp, หีบศพ hìip-sòp
coffin in Vietnamese: quan tài, hòm, săng
coffin in Myanmar: ခေါင်း hkaung:

Examples of coffin in a sentence

The book lies on the table; the snow lies on the roof; he lies in his coffin.
Thousands came to see the special that carried the President's coffin.
Following the divorce and the lawsuit, bankruptcy is just another nail in his coffin.

All 40 example sentences with coffin

Synonyms of coffin

All synonyms of coffin

Forms of coffin

Noun
plural	coffins
alternative form	coffan
alternative form	coffen
alternative form	goffin
alternative form	goffan
alternative form	goffen
alternative form (archaic)	cophin
alternative form (archaic)	coffyn
Verb
third-person singular present	coffins
present participle	coffining
past participle	coffined
past	coffined
Proper noun
plural	Coffins
alternative form	Coffing

Plural of coffin: coffins

Origin of coffin

From Middle English coffyn, from Old Northern French cofin (“sarcophagus", earlier "basket, coffer”), from Latin cophinus (“basket”), a loanword from Ancient Greek κόφινος (kóphinos, “a basket”). Doublet of coffer. Displaced native Old English þrūh.

Borrowed from Cornish koghyn (“exploratory trench”), with spelling likely influenced by etymology 1.

Phrases with coffin

6 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with coffin

boffin

Questions about coffin

What does coffin mean?: Coffin means a closed box in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial.
What is coffin in Hindi?: Coffin in Hindi is ताबूत (tābūt). See Coffin meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is coffin?: Coffin can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce coffin?: Coffin is pronounced /ˈkɒfɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of coffin?: The plural of coffin is coffins.

Words near coffin in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: coffin (page history and authors); Coffin (page history and authors); coffin (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); चमू (Sanskrit) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-coffin.ogg.

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