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.
雙語例句
1. The coffin had been draped in a Union Jack.
靈柩上覆蓋著英國國旗。
來自柯林斯例句
2. A steady procession of people filed past the coffin.
人們排成一隊(duì)，一個接一個地從靈柩旁走過。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Two reporters had to help lower the coffin into the grave.
兩名記者不得不幫忙把靈柩慢慢地放進(jìn)墓穴中。
來自柯林斯例句
4. The coffin closed with a dull thud.
棺材合上時發(fā)出一聲悶響。
來自柯林斯例句
5. The coffin was carried by six soldiers walking in lockstep .