Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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COFFIN, n. Used in Sc. as in Eng., but the following combs. are peculiar to Sc.:

1. Coffin-bed, prob. = a box-bed [coffin may mean simply a box in O.Sc. (see D.O.S.T. s.v. cofyne). The name may have arisen, however, from carvings on the panels like those on coffins, see Coff-fronted; †2. coffin-clock, a grandfather clock; 3. coffin cutter, "Ocypus olens, the cock-tail, an insect larger than an earwig, of a black colour" (Uls. 1880 W. H. Patterson Gl. Ant. and Dwn.); 4. coffin-trams, a stretcher-like contrivance for carrying a coffin (Fif.¹ 1937).1. Ags. 1888 J. M. Barrie Auld Licht Idylls viii.:
She juist lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an' flung them into the coffin-beds. Syne she snibbit the doors on them.2. Slg. 1896 W. Harvey Kennethcrook v.:
If a father presented a son with a coffin-clock as a marriage present, the woman was considered to have made a good marriage.4. Fif. 1909 Colville 118:
Those Goths, the parish heritors, left the unique apse to the betheral (sexton) for his shools [shovels] and coffin-trams, and obliterated its exquisite Norman arch with a lath and plaster partition.

Sc. usage: 5. A live coal falling from a fire and thought to presage the death of the person nearest to it.Sc. 1823 A. Sutherland Macrimmon I. vii.: 
She had seen a coffin start from the fire and fall at Alister Chisholm's feet.