catafalque

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a raised, often decorated platform or framework on which a coffin rests during a funeral or lying in state

   The flag-draped coffin rested on a catafalque in the great hall.

2. 2
   noun

   historical: a pall-covered, coffin-shaped structure used at a requiem service when the body is absent

   The memorial mass placed candles around an empty catafalque before the altar.

Borrowed in the seventeenth century from French catafalque, from Italian catafalco, 'scaffold or funeral platform.' The deeper origin is uncertain, though it has often been connected with Vulgar Latin catafalicum and Latin fala, 'wooden scaffold or siege tower.'

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