From Greek 'kophinos' (basket) — originally any container, including pie crusts, before narrowing to mean a burial box.
A long, narrow box in which a dead body is buried or cremated.
From Greek 'kophinos' meaning 'basket.' The word entered English through Old French 'cofin,' which meant any kind of box, chest, or basket — including pie crusts (the pastry 'coffin' that enclosed a filling). The death-box meaning only dominated later. Key roots: kophinos (Greek: "basket").
In Shakespeare's time, a 'coffin' was a pie crust. Recipes called for putting meat filling into a 'coffin' of pastry. The word meant any container — a basket, a box, a casing. The burial meaning existed alongside the pastry meaning for centuries. Elizabethan cookbooks are full of instructions to 'make your coffin of fine flour' — perfectly