A container for a mummy It could be a rectangular box or anthropoid (human) shaped The word coffin is often interchanged with sarcophagus, although strictly the latter refers to the outer stone container which contains the coffin
If you say that one thing is a nail in the coffin of another thing, you mean that it will help bring about its end or failure. A fine would be the final nail in the coffin of the airline. a long box in which a dead person is buried or burnt American Equivalent: casket a nail in sb's/sth's coffin nail (3) (cophin, from cophinus , from kophinos)