coffer

American Heritage Dictionary:

cof·fer

(kô'fər, kŏf'ər) pronunciation

A strongbox.
often coffers
1. Financial resources; funds.
2. A treasury: stole money from the union coffers.
Architecture. A decorative sunken panel in a ceiling, dome, soffit, or vault.
The chamber formed by a canal lock.
A cofferdam.
A floating dock.

tr.v., -fered, -fer·ing, -fers.

To put in a coffer.
Architecture. To supply (a ceiling, for example) with decorative sunken panels.

[Middle English cofre, from Old French, alteration of *cofne, from Latin cophinus, basket. See coffin.]

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(click to enlarge)
Baroque coffered ceiling of the cupola of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, designed by (credit: SCALA/Art Reference)

In architecture, a square or polygonal ornamental sunken panel used in a series as decoration for a ceiling or vault. Coffers were probably originally formed by wooden beams crossing one another to produce a grid. The earliest surviving examples were made of stone by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Coffering was revived in the Renaissance and was common in Baroque and Neoclassical architecture.

For more information on coffer, visit Britannica.com.

Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology:

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[Co]

The sunken panels used in decorating marble ceilings in important Greek and Roman buildings.

Word Tutor:

coffer

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IN BRIEF: n. - A chest especially for storing valuables; An ornamental sunken panel in a ceiling or dome.

Tutor's tip: The "cougher" (one who coughs) could not open the "coffer" (treasury, strong box) until he stopped coughing.

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

Random House Word Menu:

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Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier

For a list of words related to coffer, see:

Cases, Boxes, and Bags - coffer: strongbox
Parts of Rooms - coffer: recessed panel in ceiling or vault
Cases, Cupboards, and Chests - coffer: chest or strongbox for valuables

Rhymes:

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See words rhyming with "coffer."

Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary:

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See crossword solutions for the clue Coffer.

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

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For other uses, see Coffer (disambiguation).

Coffering on the ceiling of the Pantheon, Rome

A coffer (or coffering) in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault.^[1] A series of these sunken panels were used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also called caissons ('boxes"), or lacunaria ("spaces, openings"),^[2] so that a coffered ceiling can be called a lacunar ceiling: the strength of the structure is in the framework of the coffers. The stone coffers of the ancient Greeks^[3] and Romans^[4] are the earliest surviving examples, but a seventh-century BC Etruscan chamber tomb in the necropolis of San Giuliano, which is cut in soft tufa-like stone reproduces a ceiling with beams and cross-beams lying on them, with flat panels fillings the lacunae.^[5] Wooden coffers were first made by crossing the wooden beams of a ceiling in the Loire Valley châteaux of the early Renaissance.^[6]

Experimentation with the possible shapes of the pole is coffering, which solve problems of mathematical tiling, or tessellation, were a feature of Islamic as well as Renaissance architecture. The more complicated problems of diminishing the scale of the individual coffers were presented by the requirements of curved surfaces of vaults and domes.

A prominent example of Roman coffering, employed to lighten the weight of the dome, can be found in the ceiling of the rotunda dome in the Pantheon, Rome.

In ancient Chinese wooden architecture, coffering is known as zaojing (Chinese: 藻井; pinyin: zǎojǐng).^[7]

Giuliano da Sangallo's flat caisson ceiling, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

Footnotes

^ Ching, Francis D.K. (1995). A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. p. 30. ISBN 0-471-82451-3.
^ An alternative, in a description of Domitian's audience hall by Statius, noted by Ulrich 2007:156, is laquearia, not a copyist's error, as it appears in Manilius' Astronomica (1.533, quoted by Ulrich).
^ An example is the main hieron at Samothrace, where stone ceiling beams of the pronaos carried a coffered ceiling of marble slabs across a span of about 6.15 m (J.J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design (Cornell University Press) 1982:147.
^ Roman wooden coffered ceilings are discussed in Roger Bradley Ulrich, Roman Woodworking, ch. "Roofing and ceilings" (Yale University Press) 2007.
^ Illustrated in Ulrich, fig 8.27.
^ "coffer". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024646/coffer. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
^ Ching et al., Francis D.K. (2007). A Global History of Architecture. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p. 787. ISBN 0-471-82451-3.

External links

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Translations:

Coffer

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - kiste, kasse, kassette
v. tr. - lægge i kasse, dekorere med nedsænkede paneler

Nederlands (Dutch)
geld-/schatkist, verzonken vlak in plafond/gewelf (cassette), opbergen, van cassettes voorzien

Français (French)
n. - coffre, caisse, (Archit) caisson
v. tr. - coffrer, (Archit) décorer de caissons

Deutsch (German)
n. - Truhe, Kassette, Schatz, Geldmittel
v. - (in einer Truhe) verwahren, kassettieren

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κιβώτιο, σεντούκι, κασέλα, (πληθ.) ταμείο, χρηματοκιβώτιο, (κοίλο) φάτνωμα οροφής
v. - αποθηκεύω, διακοσμώ

Italiano (Italian)
fondi pubblici, cofano

Português (Portuguese)
n. - arca (f)
v. - ornamentar com caixotes

Русский (Russian)
сундук, казна, (множ.) государственная казна

Español (Spanish)
n. - arca, caja de caudales, fondos, tesorería
v. tr. - poner algo en una caja de caudales

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kista, kassaskrin, kassett (byggn.), kassun (byggn.)
v. - förvara ngt i kista

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
箱柜, 资金, 保险箱, 金库, 装箱

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 箱櫃, 資金, 保險箱, 金庫
v. tr. - 裝箱

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 돈궤, 소란 반자
v. tr. - 금고에 넣다, 소란 반자로 꾸미다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 貴重品箱, 財源

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) صندوق متين (فعل) يخزن في صندوق متين‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תיבה, כספת, קישוט-תקרה, אוצר, אריח שקוע בתקרה‬
v. tr. - ‮הפקיד בכספת‬

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		American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
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		Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008 HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Read more
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coffer

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Coffer