Why do they call a coffin a casket?

Answer 1

There may be several reasons for that. Probably it has to do with the repression of death (or the suppression of death awareness) in modern Western society. Mortuaries became "funeral homes" or "funeral parlors", morticians "funeral directors", dead persons "loved ones" ,and so on. Thus, "coffins" turned into "caskets". In addition to that, the shape of the burial receptacle began to change: in the US, less and less hexagonal ones ("coffins" in the narrower sense of the word) - reminding of the shape of a body - were used, but more and more often rectangular ones which looked more or less like fancy boxes. The word "casket", which originally means jewellery box, carried also the mental association of something valuable, which indirectly helped to justify the comparatively high price of modern caskets. These reasons served as an incitement to the modern people, especially to funeral professionals, to replace the word "coffin" with the word "casket".