Faith & RitualGreek → English
Sarcophagus
/sɑːrˈkɒfəɡəs/noun
A stone coffin, typically carved and displayed above ground.
The Greek roots
σάρξ
sárx
flesh
φαγεῖν
phageîn
to eat
Literally: “flesh eating”
The story of the word
Pliny reports a limestone quarried near Assos in the Troad that was said to consume a body laid in it within forty days, and the Greeks called that stone λίθος σαρκοφάγος, flesh-eating. The adjective then swallowed its noun and came to mean the coffin itself, whatever rock it was cut from. σάρξ turns up again in sarcasm, from σαρκάζειν, to strip off flesh, which is what Greek thought a sneer did to its target.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
sarcasmsarcomaesophagusanthropophagy
In a sentence
The sarcophagus was too heavy to move without taking down a wall.
Carved hunting scenes ran the whole length of the sarcophagus.