Talk:pall

It seems to me that Etymology 1, Item 3, about the heavy canvas covering for a coffin is "close but no cigar" for pall as used in pallbearer. That usage seems to be the coffin itself. Dick Kimball 12:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

There can't be much dispute about pall's etymology. What seems to have happened is that the meaning of pallbearer has shifted. MW3, for example, indicates an archaic sense of a cloth-carrying attendant at a funeral who carried a corner of the pall, a current sense of a honorary non-bearing pallbearer who merely accompanies the casket, as well as the current sense of casket-bearer. DCDuring TALK 17:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)