Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

casket, coffin (nn.)


*Coffin* is the generic term in English, but *casket* has been an American euphemism for coffin for more than a century, credited usually to undertakers’ efforts to prettify death. There is frequent objection to casket, but it seems well established, with some evidence of a semantic distinction: a coffin (the regular British term) is usually coffin-shaped, tapered roughly like a flat-faceted mummy case; a casket is essentially a regular rectangular box. (People used to keep jewels and other valuables in small caskets, but today these are jewel boxes, perhaps in part because casket has become so funereal.)
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