wooden coat

English

Alternative forms

• wooden overcoat
• wooden surtout

Noun

wooden coat (plural wooden coats)

1. (slang) Synonym of coffin.
   • 1916, Massachusetts Reformatory (Concord, Mass.), Our Paper - Volume 32, page 634:

     A wooden coat, six feet of earth, Is all that he deserves.

   • 1946, Roche Review - Volumes 11-12, page 32:

     Let all those that are suffering from any complaint or disease, and who are anxious to regain health and escape a wooden coat consult an experienced and successful practitioner

   • 1946, Alekseĭ Chapygin, Stepan Razin; A novel, page 93:

     Each of us will want one, be he beggar, policeman, prince or boyar ; everyone, sooner or later, will parade in such a wooden coat.

   • 1972, George Mackay Brown, Greenvoe: a novel, page 224:

     'My next goddam coat,' he said, 'will be a wooden coat'. . . . Now he was being measured for his wooden coat,

Translations

euphemistic slang term for coffin

• Russian: деревя́нный бушла́т (ru) m (derevjánnyj bušlát), деревя́нный макинто́ш (ru) m (derevjánnyj makintóš), деревя́нный тулу́п (ru) m (derevjánnyj tulúp)