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  • Bacchanalia
    Bacchanalia
    noun
    a festival in honor of Bacchus.
  • bacchanalia
    bacchanalia
    plural noun
    (often capital) orgiastic rites associated with Bacchus
Synonyms

Bacchanalia

American  
[bak-uh-ney-lee-uh, -neyl-yuh] / ˌbæk əˈneɪ li ə, -ˈneɪl jə /

noun

Bacchanalia, plural Bacchanalias plural
  1. (sometimes used with a plural verb) a festival in honor of Bacchus.

  2. (lowercase) a drunken feast; orgy.


bacchanalia British  
/ ˌbækəˈneɪlɪə /

plural noun

  1. (often capital) orgiastic rites associated with Bacchus

  2. any drunken revelry

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

Etymology

Origin of Bacchanalia

1625–35; < Latin equivalent to Bacch ( us ) + -ān ( us ) -an + -ālia, neuter plural of -ālis -al 1; probably modeled on volcānālia. See Saturnalia

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

While fatherhood has slowed my nightlife habits, judging by the gondola banter of a quintet of seasonal employees regaling the night prior’s exploits, the Bacchanalia is back.

From Seattle Times Jan. 13, 2023

More than anything, Bacchanalia feels like a dare to everyone in Britain who is not dining at Bacchanalia.

From New York Times Dec. 31, 2022

At Bacchanalia, the emphasis is on freshness, and the restaurant uses all organic ingredients, many of which are sourced from the owner's personal farm.

From Time Aug. 17, 2017

A 19th-century account found it to offer a “sort of Bacchanalia, to gratify the multitudes in their wandering and irregular thoughts.”

From New York Times Jun. 27, 2014

His mother might only have gone to one of her bowling Bacchanalia.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

An omen among omens: Mid-dog-walk that day, I spot a onesie that reads “Milk Drunk” and shudder at the impulse to recruit our newborns into low-key bacchanalia.

From Slate May 10, 2026

A huge banner carpeted the famed Piazza San Marco before his three-day bacchanalia: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.”

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 2, 2025

A lot of my favorite moments at The Verge happened at CES, the bacchanalia of consumer tech and consumerism that used to matter much more than it does now.

From The Verge Mar. 4, 2022

We've gotten clues that this bacchanalia isn't a one-off and leads to eviler turns.

From Salon Jan. 16, 2022

He had said, you may recall, that it seemed probable that the religious rites on these rare occasions bore some resemblance to the bacchanalia, or dionysia, of ancient Greece.

From A Columbus of Space by Serviss, Garrett Putman

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