Forms: 4 cofine, coffyne, (Sc. cowyne), 4–5 cofyn(e, 5 cofynne, cophinne, (coufin), 5–6 coffyn, cophyn(e, 5–7 cophin(e, 6 coffine, Sc. coffyng, 6–7 coffen, 5– coffin. [ME. cofin, coffyn, etc., a. OF. cofin, coffin, little basket, case, etc., ad. L. cophin-us (later cofin-us), a. Gr. κόφινος basket.]
† 1. A basket; transl. L. cophinus, Gr. κόφινος.
[So in OF. and many mod. F. dialects.]
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 62. Þei gedriden and filden twelve coffynes of relif of fyve barly loves. Ibid. (1382), 2 Kings x. 7. The … slewen the seventy men, and putten the hevedis of hem in cofynes.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 15. Gedrenge … the fragmentes of the cophinnes remanent.
1542. Elyot, Dict., Tibin, a baskette or coffyn made of wyckers or bull rushes, or barke of a tree: such oone was Moyses put in to.
1552. in Huloet.
† 2. A chest, case, casket, box. Obs.
[So in F. dial. of Picardy and Lorraine.]
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 135. Of þat þat was in cofre, & in his cofines, He mad his testament.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., IV. 672. In chistes smale or coffyns hem doo.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. viii. 19. A Cophyn of Evore.
1480. Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV. (1830), 125. Divers cofyns of fyrre wherein the Kinges books were conveyed.
1552. Surrey Ch. Goods (1869), 48. iiij torches with ij long coffins for them.
1570. Dee, Math. Pref., Make a hollow Cube, or Cubik coffen, of Copper, Silver, Tynne, or Wood.
1677. Holyoke, Dict., A coffin for a book, Loculamentum.
3. spec. The box or chest in which a corpse is enclosed for burial. (The ordinary current sense.)
[In Fr. coffin = cercueil occurs in Deguilleville c. 1330.]
1525. Churchw. Acc. St. Giles, Reading, 25. For mendyng of the cofyn that lyeth on the bere ijs. ob.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 377. He … caused him to be layde in a Coffin of Cypresse.
1613. R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3), Cophin, basket, or chest for a dead body to be put in.
1709. Hearne, Collect. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. 260. Coffins of Stone and Marble.
1720. Swift, Death of Demar. His coffers from the coffin could not save.
1817. Wolfe, Burial Sir J. Moore, iii. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, I. I. i. 2. The tears ar those which fall upon a coffin beside an open grave.
† b. Loosely used for: A bier. Obs.
1526. Tindale, Luke vii. 14. He went and touched the coffyn [Wyclif bere, 1611 beere].
1554. in Overall, Churchw. Acc. St. Michael’s Cornhill (1869), 112. For mendynge of the coffen that carrys the corsses to churche.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 531. The coffin going with a dead corps to a funerall fire, is richly painted.
c. (= coffin-spark.) An oblong piece of live coal starting out of the fire with a report: regarded as a prognostic of death.
1797. G. Colman, Br. Grins, Maid of Moor, xxiv. To the fire she drew … When, lo! a coffin out there flew, And in her apron burnt a hole.
1812. Combe, Dr. Syntax, Picturesque, x. (Chandos), 37. From the fire a coffin flew.
d. phr. To drive (or put) a nail into any one’s coffin: to do a thing that tends to shorten his life.
1836. A. Fonblanque, Eng. under 7 Administr. (1837), III. 321. A dram which … ‘drives nails into the victim’s coffin,’ according to the expressive vulgar saying.
1874. McCarthy, Linley Rochford, ix. 60. Every dinner eaten under such conditions is a nail driven into one’s coffin.
e. Naut. Applied to an old, ill-found, unseaworthy vessel, as likely to prove the burying-place of those on board. (colloq.)
1833. Ann. Reg., Chron., 32/2. Did not you say when asked if you would go to sea with her, ‘No, for she will prove a coffin for somebody?’
1844. P. Parley’s Annual, V. 275. An English gun-brig, commonly called a coffin, was seen rounding the cape, and bearing down upon the Frenchman.
1881. A. Leslie, trans. Nordenskiöld’s Voy. Vega, I. 277. ‘Floating coffins’ have often been used in Arctic voyages, and many times with greater success than the stateliest man-of-war.
[1884. Chr. World, 7 Feb., 89/4. The coffin-ship must no longer be allowed to sail under British colours.]
† 4. Cookery. a. A mold of paste for a pie; the crust of a pie. Obs.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 41. Make a cofyne as to smalle pye.
c. 1420. Cookery Bk., 45. Make fayre past of flowre & water, Sugre, & Safroun, & Salt; & þan make fayre round cofyns þer-of.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., V. ii. 189. Of the paste a coffen I will reare.
a. 1654. Selden, Table-t. (Arb.), 33. The Coffin of our Christmas Pies in shape long, is in imitation of the Cratch.
1750. E. Smith, Compl. Housewife, 157. Season your lamb with pepper, salt … So put it into your coffin.
† b. A pie-dish or mold. Obs.
1580. in Wadley, Bristol Wills (1886), 225. Twelve voyders: a Custerd coffyn.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. iii. 82. It is [a] paltrie cap, A custard coffen, a bauble, a silken pie.
1602. Plat, Delightes for Ladies, B 10. Bake it in coffins of white plate.
a. 1662. Heylin, Laud, II. (1671), 302. Which Notes … he kept in the Coffin of a Pye, which had been sent him by his Mother.
5. A paper case; spec. a receptacle made by twisting paper into a conical form or ‘cornet,’ to contain groceries, etc., or for use as a filter; still applied by printers to small paper bags of this shape to hold spare type, superfluous sorts, etc.
1577. Frampton, Joyful News (1580), 44 b. The smoke of this Hearbe, which they receaue at the mouth through certaine coffins, suche as the Grocers doe vse to put in their Spices.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., III. Chem. Conclus., 55. Make small coffyns of paper, (such as the Confit-makers vse…).
1634. J. B[ate], Myst. Nat. & Art, 70. To make the coffins [for fireworks] you must take paper, parchment, or strong canuasse, [and] rowle it hard upon a rowler.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, II. 52. I took five coffins of filtrating paper.
1772. Monro, Min. Waters, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 23. I … examined the coffin through which the salts … had passed.
1841. W. Savage, Dict. Printing, 173. These conical papers are called Coffins.
1888. Jacobi, Printer’s Vocab., 23.
6. Farriery. The whole of a horse’s hoof below the coronet, forming a horny body enclosing a hollow space.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 320. From the pastern down to the coffin of the hoof.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Hoof-Loosning, a Dissolution or dividing of the Horn or Coffin of a Horse’s Hoof from the Flesh, at the Setting on of the Cronet.
1785. Sportsman’s Dict., in N. W. Linc. Gloss., Coffin [the hoof of a horse, that is], all the horn that appears when he has his foot set on the ground.
7. Printing. a. The wooden frame enclosing the stone or bed of the old wooden hand-printing press. b. That part of a printing machine on which the forme of type is laid; the carriage of a printing machine.
Coffin-block, an angular wooden block with brass rules attached to it, which rules are raised above the block so that a stereotype or electrotype plate may be placed inside the hollow frame thus formed.
1659. Hoole, Comenius’ Vis. World (1777), 118. Which being put under the spindle, on the coffin, and pressed down with a bar, he maketh to take impression.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., II. 52. The Planck of the Carriage is an Elm-Planck … upon this Planck at its fore-end is firmly nailed down a square frame … called the Coffin, and in it the stone is bedded.
1808. Stower, Printer’s Gram., 326. At the hinder end of the frame of the coffin, two iron joints are fastened.
1841. W. Savage, Dict. Printing, 173. Coffin. That part of a wooden press, in which the stone is bedded.
1888. Jacobi, Printer’s Vocab., 23. Coffin.—The carriage or bed of a cylindrical machine or platen press.
8. A case in which articles are baked or fired in a furnace; F. cassette.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 372. A Coffin made of Clay, fitted to the Iron intended to be hardened.
1756. Dict. Arts & Sc., s.v. Porcelain, Each piece of Porcelain … is disposed, in the furnace, in its separate case, or coffin.
1799. G. Smith, Laborat., I. 200. Take some potter’s clay, to make a coffin round your plant.
† 9. The case of a chrysalis. Obs.
1711. Phil. Trans., XXVII. 346. A very strange hairy [Catterpillar] with a Pea-like Coffin. Ibid. Fig. 11, 12 and 13. are the Moth, Catterpillar, and Coffin.
† 10. The calyx of a flower. Obs.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Adjusting,… Florists … say, I will adjust a Pink; and to do this … each of them [the petals] shall be so dispos’d, that the Pink becomes larger thereby, because the extremities of their Coffins have been a little curv’d.
11. Mining. a. ‘An old open working (Cornwall). b. The mode of open working by casting up ore and waste from one platform to another, and so to the surface’ (Raymond, Mining Gloss.).
1778. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 141. This fosse they call a coffin, which they laid open several fathoms in length.
12. Milling. (See quot.)
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Coffin … one of the sockets in the eye of the runner, which receives the ends of the driver. The term is applied to other depressions, especially to such as are hollowed or chipped out.
13. Comb., as coffin-lid, -maker, -measurement, -nail, -tap, -worm; coffin-fashioned, -shaped, etc., adjs.; coffin-bone, a small spongy bone in a horse’s hoof, being the last phalangeal bone of the foot; † coffin-cloth, a cloth to cover a coffin, a pall; † coffin-cutter, a coffin-maker; † coffin-dam = COFFER-DAM; † coffin-house, a mortuary; a house where the ‘parish coffin’ was kept; coffin-joint, the joint at the top of a horse’s hoof; coffin-plate, a metal plate set in a coffin-lid, bearing the name of the deceased person, usually with dates of birth and death; coffin-ship (see sense 3 e); coffin-spark (see 3 c); coffin-stone, a stone shaped like a coffin-lid; coffin-stool, a stand or support for a coffin; † coffin-tomb, a stone coffin, sarcophagus.
c. 1720. Gibson, Farrier’s Guide, I. vi. (1738), 94. The *Coffin-bone … is so called from its hollowness.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 522/2. A semicircular disc, resembling that of the coffin-bone of the Horse.
1625. Par. Reg. St. Margaret’s, Durham. Mrs. Elsebeth Hall … dyd give … for the use of the poor … a *cofyn clothe.
1603. Dekker, Wonderfull Yeare, D iv. One of the new-found trade of *Coffin-cutters.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1539/1. An other would haue made a *coffin dam, wherof the cost would haue beene infinite.
1868. Ld. Houghton, Select. fr. Wks., 185. The *coffin-fashioned tomb.
1611. Churchw. Acc. St. Marg. Westm. (Nichols, 1797), 30. Work done about the two north gates in the church-yard and about the *coffin-house being uncovered with the great wind.
1683. A. Snape, Anat. Horse, IV. xix. (1686), 181. The *Coffin-joint on which the Hoof grows.
1847. Youatt, Horse, vii. 157. A strangely formidable disease … called ‘coffin-joint lameness.’
1816. Byron, Parisina, xix. Hid Like dust beneath the *coffin lid.
1845. Ecclesiologist, IV. 16. Stones like coffin lids in shape and detail.
1647. R. Stapylton, Juvenal, 147. Run-away slaves, hangmen, and *coffin-makers.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, iv. He was to go … as general house-lad to a coffin-maker’s.
c. 1865. G. Gore, in Circ. Sc., I. 223/2. Buckles, *coffin-nails, hooks-and-eyes.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, v. *Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 159. The *coffin-spark burning my holiday gown.
1845. Ecclesiologist, IV. 17. Many *coffin-stones may be seen in the pavement where no coffin would be found … underneath.
1886. T. Hardy, Woodlanders, ii. A little round table, curiously formed of an old *coffin-stool, with a deal top nailed on.
1851. H. Melville, Moby-Dick, li. 259. Every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a *coffin-tap.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., I. xi. 121. In the middle … stood a *Coffin-tomb, about three Foot high, and seven Foot long.
1820. Keats, Eve St. Agnes, xlii. Witch, and demon, and large *coffin-worm.
