Coffin

Coffin (Gk. kophinos, a coffer or basket) is now generally used to denote the box in which the dead are enclosed for burial, and is in America called a casket. The form used generally in England is familiar to all. The coffin with raised roof, which one often sees abroad, is rarely met with in England. Though wood is the material generally employed, stone and metal have also been used, and there are many modern patents. Some are as eager as others are reluctant to return their bodies to mother earth; but even the stone coffin is at last taken from its occupant, and becomes the possession of an antiquary or of a museum. The name was also applied in old English to pie-crust; and in anatomy it denotes part of a horse's hoof.