Word.ws English Dictionary

naumachia

naumachia noun: the recreation of a sea battle staged for entertainment.

Noun

naumachia (plural naumachias or naumachiae)

  1. (Ancient-Rome) The recreation of a sea battle staged for entertainment.
    • BEFORE he went to feed with owls and bats
      Nebuchadnezzar had an ugly dream,
      Worse than an Hus'if's when she thinks her cream
      Made a Naumachia for mice and rats.1816, John Keats, Sonnet - Before he went to feed with owls and bats, Wordsworth Editions, published 1994, page 270
  2. (Ancient-Rome, historical) The location where such recreated sea battles took place; a building featuring an artificial body of water.
    • Our clerical guide did not fail us, but took us to see some ancient architectural remains, water tanks, a naumachia and other ruins of a similar sort.1962, WH Auden; Elizabeth Mayer, translating JW Goethe, Italian Journey, Penguin, published 1970, page 286

Forms of naumachia

pluralnaumachias
pluralnaumachiae

Origin of naumachia

Learned borrowing from Latin naumachia, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ναυμαχία (naumakhía). Compare naumachy.

Words that rhyme with naumachia

Questions about naumachia

What does naumachia mean?
Naumachia means the recreation of a sea battle staged for entertainment.
What part of speech is naumachia?
Naumachia is a noun.
What is the plural of naumachia?
The plural of naumachia is naumachias.

Words near naumachia in the dictionary

  1. naulkeen
  2. naulkeens
  3. naulkees
  4. Nault
  5. Naults
  6. naumachia
  7. naumachiae
  8. naumachias
  9. naumachies
  10. naumachy
  11. Nauman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: naumachia (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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