coffined

English

Adjective

coffined

1. Enclosed in a coffin.
   • 1891 August 15, J. Neville Porter, “Mortuary Reform”, in The Sanitary Record, volume 12, page 59:

     There is no mortuaray in Plymouth for coffined bodies awaiting burial.

   • 2011, Kevin C. Kearns, Ireland's Arctic Siege of 1947: The Big Freeze of 1947:

     As the ground became frozen more solidly during February, the coffined bodies could no longer be promptly buried.

   • 2014, Branka Arsic, American Impersonal: Essays with Sharon Cameron:

     In my understanding, the desire for “the smile on the coffined face,” is the habitual yearning of the person to identify him or herself with an image, with a form.

2. Making use of or containing a coffin.
   • 1883, William Lamartine Snyder, Great Opinions by Great Judges, page 305:

     I observe, likewise, that in old tables of burial fees, a distinction of payment is made for coffined funerals and uncoffined funerals.

   • 2016, Lindsay Powell, William Southwell-Wright, Rebecca Gowland, Care in the Past, page 60:

     Adults were more likely to have had a coffined burial with evidence for 13 coffined burials out of 97 individuals (13%), four of these from within the nave of the church.

   • 2021, Stephen Rippon, Neil Holbrook, Studies in the Roman and Medieval Archaeology of Exeter, page 568:

     Coffined graves contained a burial within a wooden coffin or recptacle, and having such a grave would indicate additional expense and therefore suggest higher status.

3. (figurative) Dead or locked up and without agency.
   • 1877, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Theo: A Sprightly Love Story, page 37:

     What dead memories and coffined hopes was she bringing out to the dim light of her solitary candle?

   • 1896, Klara (Müller) Mundt, Luise Mühlbach, The Youth of the Great Elector, page 336:

     My heart is coffined, and I shall close the lid and bid it an eternal farewell!

   • 2019, Mary Costello, The River Capture, page 143:

     Coffined thoughts surround him.

Derived terms

• uncoffined

 

Verb

coffined

1. simple past and past participle of coffin