saturnalia
IPA: sˈætɝnˈeɪɫjʌ
Root Word: Saturnalia
noun
- (historical) An Ancient Roman holiday honoring the deity Saturn.
- A period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence; a period of unrestrained revelry.
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Examples of "saturnalia" in Sentences
- The holiday was originally "saturnalia" or "yule" depending on where you lived...
- We have to realize that not everyone observes Christmas as anything other than a "saturnalia" - a pagan festival.
- The runaway success of 007 demanded that Fleming's saturnalia of sex, genocidal villains and Cold War spycraft be continued by a capable literary ventriloquist.
- After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge -- a saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket?
- This was always a kind of saturnalia among the domestics, when they considered themselves at liberty, in some measure, to say and do what they pleased, for on this day their master was always observed to unbend and become exceedingly pleasant and jocose, sending the old gray-headed negroes on April-fool's errands for pigeons 'milk; not one of whom but allowed himself to be taken in, and humored his old master's jokes, as became a faithful and well disciplined dependent.
- What makes his '' short history '' so compelling is how Inglis combines an eye for captivating detail (the actor David Garrick being forced to kneel by a '' jeering audience ''), the illuminating comparison (Sarah Bernhardt versus Lola Montez, Hitler versus Edward VIII), and the synoptic view ( ''A Very Short History of the Feelings' '), with the inspired fulmination:' 'The encouragement of spite, envy, and malice needs very little by way of context; the present treatment of celebrity is a kind of saturnalia, which is to say, a ritualised occasion for the display and indulgence of antisocial feeling.' '
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