sarcophagus
A stonen coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculptureA stonen coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculpture.
» There was lots of gold inside the sarcophagus.
Внутри саркофага было много золота. — bismarck_elsa
Lepotdeterre · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
4 sensesA stonen coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculpture.
Sarkophag
саркофа́гsarkofág
саркофа́гsarkofáh
a stone coffin (usually bearing sculpture or inscriptions)
(broadly, informal)The cement and steel structure that encases the destroyed nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
саркофа́гsarkofág
саркофа́гsarkofáh
(broadly, historical)A type of wine cooler (“a piece of equipment used to keep wine chilled”) shaped like a sarcophagus (sense 1).
(historical)A kind of limestone used by the Ancient Greeks for coffins, so called because it was thought to consume the flesh of corpses.
Examples
6 sentencesThere was lots of gold inside the sarcophagus.
ruВнутри саркофага было много золота. — bismarck_elsa
They found considerable damage to many of the museum's statues and sarcophagi that were too large to be removed for safekeeping.
The sarcophagus contained the remains of Antonio.
Three Roman sarcophagi have been discovered in Turkey.
deIn der Türkei wurden drei römische Sarkophage entdeckt. — Pfirsichbaeumchen
Archaeologists have unearthed a mysterious black granite sarcophagus in Egypt.
deArchäologen haben in Ägypten einen geheimnisvollen Sarkophag aus schwarzem Granit ausgegraben. — Pfirsichbaeumchen
Translations
9 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
By meaning 1
Origin
The noun is borrowed from Latin sarcophagus (“grave; sarcophagus; flesh-eating, carnivorouThe noun is borrowed from Latin sarcophagus (“grave; sarcophagus; flesh-eating, carnivorous”), from Ancient Greek σᾰρκοφᾰ́γος (sărkophắgos, “sarcophagus; flesh-eating, carnivorous”) (so named from λῐ́θος σᾰρκοφᾰ́γος (lĭ́thos sărkophắgos, literally “flesh-eating stone”) a type of limestone found at Assos in Troas (now Behramkale, Turkey) thought to consume the flesh of corpses, and thus used to make coffins), from σαρκός (sarkós) (the genitive form of σάρξ (sárx, “flesh; body”), from Proto-Indo-European *twerḱ- (“to carve; to cut off, trim”)) + -φάγος (-phágos, suffix meaning ‘eater (of); eating’) (from ἔφαγον (éphagon, “to devour, eat”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂g- (“to allot, distribute; to divide”)).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: sarcophagi / sarcophagusesSynonyms
1 synonymsWord family
7 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Plural nouns — Because its plural is irregular
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.