Word To Use Today: kist.

Here's a lovely word, carrying with it the delicate echo of kissed.

Kist is actually three quite different words from three different sources - although all of them mean more or less the same thing.

Kist and kist and kist all mean a large chest or coffer. 


(This one's at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. Photo by Jenny ODonnell.)

One sort of a kist is probably used for storing linen or a bride's trousseau; one might be used for storing more or less anything (well, not live giraffes, obviously)



 and the other sort of kist is made to contain a dead body.

The dead body kist is quite often spelled cist...

...well, actually, what I mean is that the dead body cist would be quite often spelled cist, if people spent much time writing about burying people in chests.

Which, fortunately, they don't.


The Drzzlecombe kist, photo by Herby

Word To Use Today: kist. The Northern English and Scots word meaning a chest or coffer that can be used for more or less anything comes from the Old Norse kista; the word meaning a chest for linen or a trousseau comes from Afrikaans, from Dutch; the burying chest comes from Welsh, from the Latin cista, box