Word of the day: coffer

The word of the day is coffer:

—noun

1. a box or chest, especially one for valuables.
2. coffers, a treasury; funds
3. any of various boxlike enclosures, as acofferdam.
4. Also called caisson, lacunar.  Architecture. one of a number of sunken panels, usually square or octagonal, in a vault, ceiling, or soffit.

mid-13c., from O.Fr. cofre "a chest," from L. cophinus "basket" (see coffin).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coffer)

"About fifty miles north of Antigua reigned a man named Comagre, who lived with his many wives and children in what the historian Pietro Martire d'Anghiera described as 'a house made of big, interwoven timbers, with a hall 80 paces wide and 150 long and what looked like a coffered ceiling.'"

 - Charles Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created