Why this word is great
FERETRUM — [Noun] A medieval processional shrine or reliquary, designed to hold and publicly display the effigies and sacred relics of a saint. Its etymology is a journey of conveyance: a learned borrowing from Latin *feretrum* ("bier, funeral litter"), from Ancient Greek φέρετρον (*phéretron*, "a means of carrying"), from φέρω (*phérō*, "to carry"). Unlike a reliquary, which may be a small, static casket for private contemplation, or a bier, a stark, functional framework for the dead, a feretrum is a mobile theater of sanctity. It is the heavy sway of gilded wood borne on the shoulders of chanting monks, the flicker of candlelight on enameled martyrdom glimpsed through rock crystal, and the slow, rhythmic creak of its poles moving through the incense-thick air of a cathedral aisle—a vessel not for transport to the grave, but for the ceremonial assertion that what is most holy is never quite at rest.