different between coffin vs urn

English

Alternative forms

• cophin (archaic)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?f?n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?k?f?n/
• (US, cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /?k?f?n/
• Rhymes: -?f?n
• Rhymes: -?f?n

Noun

coffin (plural coffins)

1. A rectangular closed box in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial.

   Synonym: (US) casket

   • 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 remains, genuinely heartbreaking.

2. (cartomancy) The eighth Lenormand card.
3. (archaic) A casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie.
   • 1596, The Good Huswife's Jewell

     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.

4. (obsolete) A conical paper bag, used by grocers.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

5. The hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone.
6. A storage container for nuclear waste.

Usage notes

• The type of coffin with upholstery and a half-open lid (mostly in the United States) is called a casket.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To place in a coffin.
   • 2007, Barbara Everett, "Making and Breaking in Shakespeare's Romances," London Review of Books, 29:6, page 21:

     The chest in which she is coffined washes ashore and is brought to the Lord Cerimon.

Synonyms

• encoffin

Translations

Further reading

• coffin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Middle English

Noun

coffin (plural)

1. Alternative form of coffyn

English

Alternative forms

• urne (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English urne, from Old French urne, from Latin urna (“vessel”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?n/
• Rhymes: -??(r)n
• Homophone: earn

Noun

urn (plural urns)

1. A vase with a footed base.
   • 1648, John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick

     A rustic, digging in the ground by Padua, […] found an urn, or earthen pot, in which there was another urn.

   • His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, / And once more join us in the pious urn.
2. A metal vessel for serving tea or coffee.
3. A vessel for the ashes or cremains of a deceased person.
4. (figuratively) Any place of burial; the grave.
5. (historical, Roman antiquity) A measure of capacity for liquids, containing about three gallons and a half, wine measure. It was half the amphora, and four times the congius.
6. (botany) A hollow body shaped like an urn, in which the spores of mosses are contained; a spore case; a theca.

Translations

Verb

urn (third-person singular simple present urns, present participle urning, simple past and past participle urned)

1. (transitive) To place in an urn.

Further reading

• urn on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Nur, nur, run

Dutch

Alternative forms

• urne

Etymology

Latin urna.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?rn/
• Hyphenation: urn
• Rhymes: -?rn

Noun

urn f (plural urnen, diminutive urntje n)

1. funerary urn

   Synonym: asvaas

2. any other footed vase

Derived terms

• urnenmuur
• urnenveld