Saturnalia

Definitions: Saturnalia

Saturnalia

Noun

1. An orgiastic festival in ancient Rome in honor of Saturn.

2. A wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity.

Date "Saturnalia" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1651. (references)

Etymology: Saturnalia \Sat`ur*na"li*a\, plural noun. [Latin expression See Saturn.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definitions: Saturnalia

Domain	Definitions
Literature	Saturnalia A time of licensed disorder and misrule. With the Romans it was the festival of Saturn, and was celebrated the 17th, 18th, and 19th of December. During its continuance no public business could be transacted, the law courts were closed, the schools kept holiday, no war could be commenced, and no malefactor punished. Under the empire the festival was extended to seven days. Source: Brewer's Dictionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Saturnalia

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Saturnalia (from the god Saturn) was the name the Romans gave to their holiday marking the Winter Solstice. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, the 17th through 23rd of December. It also degenerated from mostly tomfoolery, marked chiefly by having masters and servants switch places, to sometimes debauchery, so that the (lower case) word "saturnalia" came to mean "orgy."

The customary greeting for the occasion is, "Io, Saturnalia!" -- io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, there").

Other Roman festivals and rites include the Ambarvalia and the Lupercalia.

It has been postulated that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25th as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. This would sidestep the problem of eliminating an already popular holiday while Christianizing the population.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Saturnalia."

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Synonyms: Saturnalia

Synonyms: bacchanal (n), bacchanalia (n), debauch (n), debauchery (n), drunken revelry (n), orgy (n), riot (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Saturnalia

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Amusement	Festivity, merrymaking; party; (social gathering); blowout, hullabaloo, hoedown, bat, bum, bust, clambake, donation party, fish fry, jamboree, kantikoy, nautch, randy, squantum, tear, Turnerfest, yule log; fete, festival, gala, ridotto; revels, revelry, reveling; carnival, brawl, saturnalia, high jinks; feast, banquet; (food); regale, symposium, wassail; carouse, carousal; jollification, junket, wake, Irish wake, picnic, fete champetre, regatta, field day; treat.
Disorder	Turmoil; ferment; (agitation); to-do, trouble, pudder, pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour, scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb, fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia discors; Bedlam, all hell broke loose; bull in a china shop; all the fat in the fire, diable a' quatre, Devil to pay; pretty kettle of fish; pretty piece of work, pretty piece of business.
Intemperance	Revels, revelry; debauch, carousal, jollification, drinking bout, wassail, saturnalia, orgies; excess, too much.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Saturnalia

English words defined with "Saturnalia": Saturnalian, Sigillaria. (references)

Specialty definitions using "Saturnalia": Heads or Tails ♦ King of Misrule. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Saturnalia" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses.

Swedish (saturnalia).

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Commercial Usage: Saturnalia

Domain	Title
Books	Calculator Saturnalia (reference) Concordantia Macrobiana : a concordance to the Saturnalia of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius (reference) Opera: Saturnalia (Bibliotheca Teubneriana) (reference) Saturnalia (reference) Spiritual saturnalia; fragments of existence (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Tom Chaffee & The Saturnalia (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Saturnalia

"Saturnalia" is generally used as a noun (common) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Saturnalia" is used about 2 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (common)	100%	2	245,945

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Saturnalia

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
saturnalia	47
comic saturnalia	3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Saturnalia

Language		Translations for "Saturnalia"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		saturnalitë, festime të shfrenuara. (various references)

Arabic		‏عيد الإله ساتورن. (various references)

Bulgarian		сатурналии, вакханалия (bacchanalia), оргия (debauch, orgy). (various references)

Dutch		Saturnaliën. (various references)

Esperanto		Saturnalio. (various references)

French		saturnales. (various references)

German		saturnalien, wilde feste, freudenfeste (whoopees). (various references)

Greek		κρόνια, όργιο (debauch, orgy, revelry, riot). (various references)

Hungarian		szaturnáliák. (various references)

Manx		Feailley Sarn. (various references)

Pig Latin		aturnaliasay

Portuguese		saturnais. (various references)

Russian		сатурналии, разгул (debauchery, orgy, riot). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		saturnalije, pirovanje. (various references)

Spanish		saturnales, bacanal (bacchanal, bacchanalia, bacchanalian). (various references)

Swedish		saturnalia. (various references)

Turkish		sefahat alemi, satürn bayramı, eğlence (amusement, bash, beano, blow out, carnival, conviviality, distraction, diversion, entertainment, festivity, fete, frolic, fun, gag, gaiety, high jinks, jamboree, jollification, jolliness, jollity, merriment, merrymaking, party, pastime, play, plaything, racket, recreation, recreational, rejoicing, relaxation, revel, setout, sport), cümbüş (bash, bender, binge, blast, blow out, booze, booze-up, burst up, bust, Buster, carousal, festivity, high jinks, jamboree, jollification, jollity, merriment, merrymaking, metal mandolin, racket, razzle-dazzle, revel, revelry, riot, spree). (various references)

Ukranian		сатурналії, вакханалія (bacchanal, bacchanalia). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Saturnalia

Derivations
	Words beginning with "Saturnalia": saturnalian, saturnalianly, saturnalias. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Saturnalia" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: naturalia, satunalia, saturnalian, saturniid. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Saturnalia"

Words rhyming with "Saturnalia" (pronounced 'Sat`ur*na"li*a'): Abdominalia, Acholia, Alalia, Antlia, Aurelia, Bacchanalia, Cerealia, Coelia, Dahlia, Generalia, Grindelia, Hydrocorallia, Implacentalia, Larvalia, Linguatulida, lobelia, Lupercalia, magnolia, Mammalia, Marginalia, melancholia, Nebalia, Neuroglia, Paraphernalia, Penetralia, Physalia, Prosocoelia, Pseudocoelia, Quinquennalia, replica, Rosalia, stapelia, Tetractinellida, Thulia. (additional references)

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Anagrams: Saturnalia

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-a-i-l-n-r-s-t-u"
	-1 letter: artisanal.
	-2 letters: naturals, salariat.
	-3 letters: antiars, anurias, artisan, austral, insular, lariats, latrias, natural, nutrias, ranulas, ratlins, rituals, saurian, sultana, talaria, tsarina, uranias, urinals.
	-4 letters: alants, altars, antiar, antral, anural, anuria, arista, aslant, astral, atrial, aurist, instal, instar, insult, lanais, lariat, latria, lauans, lauras, lianas, lunars, lustra, nairas, narial, nasial, nutria, ranula, ratals, ratans, ratlin, riatas, ritual, ruanas, rutins, salina, santir, santur, satara, strain, sultan, sunlit, talars, tarnal, tarsal, tarsia, tiaras, trails, trains, trials, trinal, ultras, urania, urials, urinal.
	-5 letters: airns, airts, alans, alant, alias, alist, altar, anils, anlas, antas, antis, antra, arias, arils, artal, asana, astir, atlas, atria, aunts, aural, auras, auris, laari, lairs, lanai, laris, lauan, laura, liana, liars, lints, liras, litas, lunar, lunas, lunts, nails, naira, naris, nasal, natal, nurls, raias, rails, rains, ranis, rants, ratal, ratan, rials, riant, riata, ruana, ruins, runts, rutin, saint, saran, sarin, satin, sault, sauna, sitar, slain, slant, snail, snarl, stain, stair, stria, suint, sural, sutra, tails, tains, talar, talas, talus, tarns, tarsi, tiara, tirls, trail, train, trans, trial, tunas, turns, ulans, ulnar, ulnas, ultra, unais, units, unlit, until, urial.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-a-i-l-n-r-s-t-u"
	+1 letter: saturnalian, saturnalias.
	+2 letters: salutatorian.
	+3 letters: astronautical, equalitarians, intravascular, salutatorians, saturnalianly, supranational, suprarational.
	+4 letters: transvaluating, transvaluation.
	+5 letters: astronautically, equalitarianism, intravascularly, latitudinarians, naturalizations, transubstantial, transvaluations, valetudinarians, vascularization.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.