different between sarcophagus vs casket

English

Etymology

From French sarcophage, from Latin sarcophagus, from Ancient Greek ?????????? (sarkophágos, “coffin of limestone”, noun), so named from a supposed property of consuming the flesh of corpses laid in it, from ?????????? (sarkophágos, “flesh-eating, carnivorous”), from genitive ?????? (sarkós) of ???? (sárx, “flesh, meat”) + -????? (-phágos) (from ?????? (éphagon), past of ???? (phág?, “eat”))

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??(?)?k?f???s/

Noun

sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses)

1. A stone coffin, often inscribed or decorated with sculpture.
2. (informal) The cement and steel structure that encases the destroyed reactor at the power station in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
3. (historical) A kind of limestone used by the Greeks for coffins, so called because it was thought to consume the flesh of corpses.
4. (historical) An 18th-century form of wine cooler.

Related terms

• sarcophagy
• autosarcophagy

Translations

Further reading

• sarcophagus in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• sarcophagus in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• sarcophagus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ?????????? (sarkophágos, “coffin of limestone”), ?????????? (sarkophágos, “flesh-eating, carnivorous”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /sar?ko.p?a.?us/, [s?är?k?p?ä??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /sar?ko.fa.?us/, [s?r?k??f??us]

Noun

sarcophagus m (genitive sarcophag?); second declension

1. a grave, sepulchre

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

• Old High German: saruh
  • Middle High German: sarc
    • German: Sarg
• Vulgar Latin: *sarcus
  • Middle Dutch: sarc, serc
    • Dutch: zerk
  • Old Frisian: serk
• Vulgar Latin: *sarcovagum, *sarcovum
  • Old French: sarcou, sarqueu
    • French: cercueil
      • Esperanto: ?erko
    • Norman: cerqueu
  • >? Galician: sartego, sarteo
• ? English: sarcophagus
• ? French: sarcophage

Adjective

sarcophagus (feminine sarcophaga, neuter sarcophagum); first/second-declension adjective

1. flesh-devouring, carnivorous
2. a kind of limestone used for coffins

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

References

• sarcophagus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sarcophagus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sarcophagus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• sarcophagus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

English

Etymology

Probably from Norman cassette. Possibly reformed by analogy with cask, thus analyzable as cask +? -et. Doublet of cassette.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kæs.k?t/, /?k??.sk?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?kæs.k?t/

Noun

casket (plural caskets)

1. A little box, e.g. for jewellery.
   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, part 1, chapter 5

     They will be here at five, take merely the clothes necessary for the journey and her jewel-casket.

2. (Britain) An urn.
3. (Canada, US) A coffin.
4. (nautical) A gasket.

Translations

Verb

casket (third-person singular simple present caskets, present participle casketing, simple past and past participle casketed)

1. (poetic, transitive) To put into, or preserve in, a casket.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 5,^[1]

     I have […] casketed my treasure.

Related terms

• cask

References

Anagrams

• sacket