coffin: [14] Greek kóphinus meant ‘basket’. It passed via Latin cophinus into Old French, where it split into two words. Cofin came to mean ‘box, chest’ as well as ‘basket’, and it was with these senses that it was borrowed into English. The specific application to boxes for burial is not recorded before the early 16th century. The other Old French descendant of Latin cophinus was coffre, which gave English coffer [13]. => coffer
coffin (n.)
early 14c., "chest or box for valuables," from Old French cofin "sarcophagus," earlier "basket, coffer" (12c., Modern French coffin), from Latin cophinus "basket, hamper" (source of Italian cafano, Spanish cuebano "basket"), from Greek kophinos "a basket," which is of uncertain origin.
Funeral sense in English is 1520s; before that it was the literal Latin one and had also a meaning of "pie crust" (late 14c.). Meaning "vehicle regarded as unsafe" is from 1830s. Coffin nail "cigarette" is slang from 1880; nail in (one's) coffin "thing that contributes to one's death" is from 1792.
双语例句
1. The coffin had been draped in a Union Jack.
灵柩上覆盖着英国国旗。
来自柯林斯例句
2. A steady procession of people filed past the coffin.
人们排成一队，一个接一个地从灵柩旁走过。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Two reporters had to help lower the coffin into the grave.
两名记者不得不帮忙把灵柩慢慢地放进墓穴中。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The coffin closed with a dull thud.
棺材合上时发出一声闷响。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The coffin was carried by six soldiers walking in lockstep .