Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (1)
1.
a stone coffin (usually bearing sculpture or inscriptions);
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Sarcophagus \Sar*coph"a*gus\, n.; pl. L. Sarcophagi, E.
Sarcophaguses. [L., fr. Gr. sarkofa`gos, properly, eating
flesh; sa`rx, sa`rkos, flesh + fagei^n to eat. Cf.
Sarcasm.]
1. A species of limestone used among the Greeks for making
coffins, which was so called because it consumed within a
few weeks the flesh of bodies deposited in it. It is
otherwise called lapis Assius, or Assian stone, and is
said to have been found at Assos, a city of Lycia.
--Holland.
[1913 Webster]
2. A coffin or chest-shaped tomb of the kind of stone
described above; hence, any stone coffin.
[1913 Webster]
3. A stone shaped like a sarcophagus and placed by a grave as
a memorial.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
sarcophagus
n 1: a stone coffin (usually bearing sculpture or inscriptions)
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a
certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of
devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus known to modern
obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter's art.