catafalque

• catafalco

Borrowed from French catafalque, from Italian catafalco, from Vulgar Latin *catafalicum, from Ancient Greek κατά (katá, “down”) + Latin fala (“scaffolding, wooden siege tower”), which is from Etruscan. Also influenced scaffold.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkatəfalk/

catafalque (plural catafalques)

1. A platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate.
   • 1942, The Giant Joshua by Maurine Whipple

     Until noon, the hour of the funeral, crowds continued to file by the plain pine coffin on its plain flower-covered catafalque.

   • 2007, Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon, Blue Bridge 2008, p. 91:

     The period of official mourning was long-drawn-out even by the standards of the day; the funeral ceremony held in Avignon's cathedral lasted a full nine days, with the pope's catafalque hung with black silk beneath candelabra likewise draped in black.

• catafalque on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from Italian catafalco, from Vulgar Latin *catafalicum, from Ancient Greek κατά (katá, “down”) + Latin fala (“scaffolding, wooden siege tower”), which is from Etruscan.

• IPA^(key): /ka.ta.falk/

• Audio

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• Homophone: catafalques

catafalque m (plural catafalques)

1. catafalco, catafalque

• “catafalque” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).