cooling board

noun

, South Midland and Southern U.S. Older Use.

1. a plank for laying out a corpse.

Word History and Origins

Origin of cooling board¹

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

A kitchen table can, in the throes of a yellow-fever outbreak, Become a cooling board holding the boss wife’s body.

From The New Yorker

So I went to my dead mother where she was on de cooling board and brushed my dress and said, 'Look at my pretty dress.'

From Project Gutenberg

When he was beastliest, he made frequent allusions to the cooling board, referring to a revel, in which, having covered himself with glory, he awoke from a dead drunk to find himself arrayed in his shroud, since which he has been in the habit of designating himself a resurrectionist.

From Project Gutenberg

For a young woman to see a cooling board in her dreams, foretells sickness and quarrels with her lover.

From Project Gutenberg

To dream of some living person as dead and rising up from a cooling board, denotes she will be indirectly connected with that person in some trouble, but will find out that things will work out satisfactorily.

From Project Gutenberg