A raised platform or decorated framework on which a coffin rests during a funeral or state lying-in; ceremony given an architecture (formal). A catafalque implies pageantry, grief arranged with solemn craft.

Via French and Italian from a word for a scaffold or temporary structure, ultimately tied to the idea of a constructed stage. In English it retained the sense of transience: a structure made to be dismantled once the living have finished their farewell.