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A pallbearer is one of several funeral
Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour....
 participants who helps carry the casket
Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains ? either for burial or cremation....
 of a deceased person from a religious or memorial service or viewing either directly to a cemetery
Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which death body and cremation are burial. The term cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground....
 or mausoleum
Mausoleum

A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons....
, or to and from the hearse
Hearse

A hearse is a funeral vehicle, a conveyance for the casket from e.g. a Church to a cemetery, a similar burial site, or a crematorium. In the funeral trade, they are often called funeral coaches....
 which does so.

A pall is the heavy cloth that is draped over a coffin
Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains ? either for burial or cremation....
. Hence the metaphoric term "casting a pall" on a gathering of people, by announcing bad news to the group. By metonymy
Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept....
, the term "pallbearer" is used to signify someone who bears the coffin which the pall covers.

Some traditions distinguish between these two roles, with pallbearer being a ceremonial position, just carrying a tip of the pall or a cord attached to it, while casketbearers do the actual heavy lifting and carrying.






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Encyclopedia


A pallbearer is one of several funeral
Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour....
 participants who helps carry the casket
Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains ? either for burial or cremation....
 of a deceased person from a religious or memorial service or viewing either directly to a cemetery
Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which death body and cremation are burial. The term cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground....
 or mausoleum
Mausoleum

A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons....
, or to and from the hearse
Hearse

A hearse is a funeral vehicle, a conveyance for the casket from e.g. a Church to a cemetery, a similar burial site, or a crematorium. In the funeral trade, they are often called funeral coaches....
 which does so.

A pall is the heavy cloth that is draped over a coffin
Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains ? either for burial or cremation....
. Hence the metaphoric term "casting a pall" on a gathering of people, by announcing bad news to the group. By metonymy
Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept....
, the term "pallbearer" is used to signify someone who bears the coffin which the pall covers.

Some traditions distinguish between these two roles, with pallbearer being a ceremonial position, just carrying a tip of the pall or a cord attached to it, while casketbearers do the actual heavy lifting and carrying. There may otherwise be only pallbearers in the literal sense while the casket is on an animal or on an animal-drawn or motorized vehicle.

Pallbearers are usually associated in an intimate manner with the deceased before their death, though this is not always the case.

Sources and references