Sekirov Dictionary

sarcophagus

UK /sɑːˈkɒfəɡəs/US /sɑɹˈkɑfəɡəs/

noun 4
verb 1
forms 5

noun4

•
A stonen coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculpture.
- One meets vvith many other Figures of Meleager in the ancient Basso Relievo's, and on the Sides of the Sarcophagi, or Funeral Monuments. — 1705
(informal) The cement and steel structure that encases the destroyed nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
•
(historical) A type of wine cooler (“a piece of equipment used to keep wine chilled”) shaped like a sarcophagus.
- A George VI mahogany sarcophagus wine cooler, with nulled mouldings and brass ring handles, the turned stem on leaf carved and moulded legs and brass castors. — 2015
•
(historical) A kind of limestone used by the Ancient Greeks for coffins, so called because it was thought to consume the flesh of corpses.
- His Entrails are like the Sarcophagus, that devours dead Bodies in a small Space, […] — 1681

verb1

•
To enclose (a corpse, etc.) in a sarcophagus.
- Even the sight of a very great king indeed, sarcophagused under electric light in a hall full of most fortifying pictures, does not hold him [a visitor to the Valley of the Kings, Egypt] too long. — 1913

forms

sarcophagused · sarcophagusing · sarcophaguses · sarcophagi · sarcophagusses

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