Coffin, Casket, Undertaker, Mortician: How Funeral Words Changed

Funeral words have changed over time, and some changes were deliberate. This article follows five of them: coffin, casket, undertaker, mortician, and funeral director.

Where does “coffin” come from?

From a word for a basket. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces it from early 14th-century English, where it meant a chest or box for valuables, to Old French cofin, which meant “sarcophagus” and, earlier, “basket” or “coffer.” It goes back to Latin cophinus and Greek kophinos, “basket.” The sense of a box in which a dead body is placed dates from the 1520s. Before that, the main second meaning in English was “pie crust,” a mold or casing of pastry.

Where does “casket” come from?

From a jewel box. Mental Floss explains that “casket” was originally an ornamental box for jewelry or other precious things. By the mid-19th century in the United States, the local undertaker had become a funeral director, and as embalming advanced, so did the funeral business. The traditional form-fitting coffin was thought too gloomy for viewing. A four-sided box with a hinged lid replaced it, and the word “casket” came along with it. The word had none of the grim associations of “coffin,” or so the thinking went. The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for this new sense shows the change of attitude, because it describes the casket as worthy of the “jewel” it held: a loved one.

Is there a difference today?

In North America, yes, though people often swap the words. According to Mental Floss, a “coffin” refers specifically to a hexagonal box tapered to fit the body, wider at the shoulders and narrower at the feet, while a “casket” is rectangular. For choosing one, see Caskets: Types, Costs, and What to Know and Do I Actually Need a Casket?.

Where does “undertaker” come from?

From the verb “undertake.” The Online Etymology Dictionary says the specialized sense of a person whose business is to manage funerals and arrange burials dates from the 1690s and grew out of the phrase “funeral undertaker.”

Why was “mortician” invented?

To replace “undertaker.” The Online Etymology Dictionary says “mortician” was coined in 1895 in American English from “mortuary” plus “-ician,” as in “physician.” It quotes a July 1895 report in The Medical Herald, which says that an undertaker would no longer be called an “undertaker and embalmer,” and that this was decided at a meeting of the Funeral Directors’ Association of Kentucky in Louisville. Other accounts differ on where the word was first proposed. Wikipedia and Mental Floss credit the trade magazine The Embalmers’ Monthly, which put out a call for a new name. They agree on the motive: practitioners wanted to distance themselves from “undertaker,” which had come to seem tarnished by its link to death.

What about “funeral director”?

Wikipedia describes a funeral director as also known as an undertaker or mortician, with “mortician” being the American English form. It adds that as embalming became more complicated, funeral services moved out of people’s homes and into funeral parlors and then funeral homes. See What Does a Funeral Director Do? and The Death Care Industry in America.

What is the pattern?

Words that became too blunt were replaced with softer ones, and the process repeated. Coffin gave way to casket in American usage, and “undertaker” was joined by “mortician” and “funeral director.” That is the same impulse behind euphemisms like “passed away.” See Why Do We Say “Passed Away”?.

Where can I learn more?

See Where the Words Cemetery, Morgue, Hearse, and Funeral Come From and How Have Funerals Changed Over the Last 100 Years?.