catafalque

plural catafalques

1. A platform used to display or convey a coffin during a funeral, often ornate.

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

   1942, Maurine Whipple, The Giant Joshua

   2 more examples

   After another brief funeral rite at Tzu Hu, the presidential casket was laid on the catafalque in the central hall of a temporary “mausoleum” and sealed with marble slabs. There, the body of President Chiang will rest pending permanent burial in the mainland after its recovery.

   1976, “China Yearbook 1976”, in The Hallmark, Taipei: China Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 2

   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.

   2007, Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon, Blue Bridge, published 2008, page 91

   Synonyms: catafalco