Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A stone coffin, often inscribed or decorated with sculpture.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A species of stone used among the Greeks for making coffins. It was called by the Romans lapis Assius, from being found at Assos, a city of the Troad.
- noun A stone coffin, especially one ornamented with sculptures or bearing inscriptions, etc.
- noun A peculiar wine-cooler forming part of a dining-room sideboard about the end of the eighteenth century: it was a dark mahogany box, lined with lead.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A species of limestone used among the Greeks for making coffins, which was so called because it consumed within a few weeks the flesh of bodies deposited in it. It is otherwise called
lapis Assius , orAssian stone , and is said to have been found at Assos, a city of Lycia. - noun A coffin or chest-shaped tomb of the kind of stone described above; hence, any stone coffin.
- noun A stone shaped like a sarcophagus and placed by a grave as a memorial.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
stone coffin , ofteninscribed ordecorated withsculpture . - noun informal The cement and steel
structure thatencases the destroyedreactor at thepower station in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a stone coffin (usually bearing sculpture or inscriptions)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A Twelfth Dynasty mummified princess, enclosed for eternity in a huge stone sarcophagus, is about to take a long voyage to Cairo as part of a routine museum exchange.
The Bone Vault: Summary and book reviews of The Bone Vault by Linda Fairstein. 2003
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You could use some sun and that sarcophagus is starting get a little stuffy.
Some Days...I Just Want To Slap Someone ouchouch 2001
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MR. PONEMAN: Our view on the second skin or what is sometimes called the sarcophagus issue -- (laughter) -- I didn't make it up.
Press Briefing On Presidents Trip To Russia ITY National Archives 1996
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Dorje's men had used it as a tank to hold their drinking water, and that, at any rate, was something more like its original purpose than the use that the word sarcophagus suggests.
Jimgrim Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1931
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This mask of Rameses II., from the lid of his wooden sarcophagus, is in the Museum of Ghizeh.
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A "sarcophagus" -- a steel and concrete shell built soon after the disaster to contain the radiation is increasingly unstable.
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They also built a structure, called a sarcophagus, to cover the shattered reactor and its radioactive fuel.
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They also built a structure, called a sarcophagus, to cover the shattered reactor and its radioactive fuel.
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Laurin Dodd, an American engineer who is directing the new containment project, described the condition of the existing shelter, often called the sarcophagus.
World Pledges $780 Million for New Shell for Chernobyl Nuclear Plant 2011
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Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor linger inside the so-called sarcophagus, a 24-story concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident.
Stunning Photos Of Chernobyl 25 Years Later Joanna Zelman 2011
oroboros commented on the word sarcophagus
"Flesh eating" see sarcasm.
September 26, 2007
bilby commented on the word sarcophagus
"A fleeting glimmer of light surrounded him, and then the casket thudded back down. Langdon lay panting in the dark. He tried to use his legs to lift as he had before, but now that the sarcophagus had fallen flat, there was no room even to straighten his knees.
As the claustrophobic panic closed in, Langdon was overcome by images of the sarcophagus shrinking around him. Squeezed by delirium, he fought the illusion with every logical shred of intellect he had.
'Sarcophagus,' he stated alound, with as much academic sterility as he could muster. But even erudition seemed to be his enemy today. Sarcophagus is from the Greek 'sarx' meaning 'flesh', and 'phagein' meaning 'to eat'. I'm trapped in a box literally designed to 'eat flesh'."
- 'Angels and Demons', Dan Brown.
February 28, 2008