Myth & LegendGreek → English
Bacchanal
/ˈbækənæl/noun
A wild drunken celebration, or a devotee of the wine god.
The Greek roots
Βάκχος
Bákchos
Bacchus, Dionysus
Literally: “of Bacchus”
Follow a root:Βάκχος1 word
The story of the word
Rome imported the god along with his rites, then panicked. In 186 BC the Senate suppressed the Bacchanalia as a danger to public order, one of the earliest recorded state crackdowns on a religious movement, and Livy describes the investigation at length. Bacchus was only one of many names for Dionysus; Latin simply preferred it, and English inherited the preference.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
bacchanalianbacchantDionysian
In a sentence
What began as a quiet dinner turned into a three-day bacchanal.