Word.ws English Dictionary

discumbency

discumbency noun: a reclining position at a meal table, as was apparently the manner in old times such as in Ancient Rome.

Noun

discumbency (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) A reclining position at a meal table, as was apparently the manner in old times such as in Ancient Rome.
    • among the Insticutionary rules of youth , he adviseth they might not be permitted to hear Iambicks and Tragedies before they were admitted unto discumbency or lying along with others at their meals1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC

Origin of discumbency

From Latin discumbens, present participle of discumbere. See discubitory.

Questions about discumbency

What does discumbency mean?
Discumbency means a reclining position at a meal table, as was apparently the manner in old times such as in Ancient Rome.
What part of speech is discumbency?
Discumbency is a noun.

Words near discumbency in the dictionary

  1. disculpations
  2. disculpatory
  3. disculped
  4. disculping
  5. disculps
  6. discumbency
  7. discumber
  8. discumbered
  9. discumbering
  10. discumbers
  11. discure

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: discumbency (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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