bacchanalia

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“
To see the symbols of violence - yellow barricades, barrels, armed guards, Police jeeps and sniffer dogs - intermingled with the bacchanalia is a strange juxtaposition for us used to a different atmosphere.

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Definitions (6)

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  1. [capitalized] In Roman antiquity, a festival in honor of Bacchus. These festivals became the occasion of great excesses, and were forbidden by the senate in 186 b. c. Any festivities characterized by jollity and good-fellowship, particularly if somewhat boisterous, and accompanied by much wine-drinking. The morning after the bacchanalia in the saloon of the palace. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, p. 283.
  2. Drunken orgies; riotous disorders; ruthless and shameless excesses; unbounded license. Plunging without restraint or shame into the Bacchanalia of despotism, the king [John] continued to pillage, to banish, and to slay. Sir E. Creasy, Eng. Const., p. 110.

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Examples (50)

  • Probably not, but we'll have to be blind and deaf to ignore this media bacchanalia. —  Simply Jews
  • Analysis of the highest order from Craig Burley on Setanta last week - or some time during the recent bacchanalia - when an elderly Manchester United fan was seen celebrating a Park Ji-Sung goal against Middlesbrough long after it had been ruled out for offside. —  Blogposts | guardian.co.uk
  • Border bacchanalia as you put keyboard key to Word because you cared about this one. —  Dallas Observer | Complete Issue
  • BUT, where oh where is your minds, leaving off Ellen Barkin's sex-drenched "Siesta," Kris Kristofferson's molten soft porn with Sarah Miles in "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea," the devastatingly sensual Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon (oh and recall the lemon scene in "Atlantic City?"), David Bowie vampire lust bacchanalia "The Hunger," or the classic Irons-Binoche obsession "Damage". —  Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
  • And as the bacchanalia got up to speed, out-of-towners had an opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with genuine western culture. —  Market News
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Etymologies (1)

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  1. L. (Old Latin bacanalia), neuter plural of bacchanalis, pertaining to Bacchus: see bacchanal.
 

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