also: きゅう · ひつぎ
General term for a coffin or casket; used in both everyday and formal contexts.
The mourners carried the coffin to the hearse.
The coffin was decorated with white flowers.
The body was placed in the coffin.
Six men shouldered the coffin and walked.
棺 is the general word for a coffin of any material, while 石棺 specifically denotes a coffin made of stone.
棺 (a coffin) and 缶 (a can/tin) are pronounced identically as かん but are completely unrelated in meaning and written with different kanji.
Standard kanji spelling; high-frequency news term.
Rare variant kanji; reading きゅう is uncommon.
Kana spelling sometimes used for clarity or in children's contexts.
The kanji 棺 is a phono-semantic compound: 木 (tree, wood) + 官 (official, but here used phonetically). The reading かん is the on'yomi; ひつぎ is a native Japanese reading.
coffin birth; postmortem fetal extrusion