sarcophagusses

Noun

sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses or (rare) sarcophagusses)

1. A stonen coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculpture.
   • [T]his (venter impiorum inſaturabilis [the insatiable belly of the wicked]) in foure & tvventie houres conſumes many carkaſſes of Fiſhes and Fovvles, and generally tvvice a day all the fleſh therein interred; ſo true a Sarcophagus is the belly: […]1619, Samuel Purchas, “Mans Retrograde to a Belly, Spider, Idle, Idoll-belly: The Titles, Temples, Sacrifices, Incense, Liturgies, Students, Lawes, Sacraments, Deuotions of God-belly”, in Purchas His...

   Synonyms:

   sarcophage

2. (broadly, informal) The cement and steel structure that encases the destroyed nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
   • 'They move stuff out of the sarcophagus?' / 'I know, crazy people, they're killing themselves from radiation.' […] '[S]o the materials, plutonium, catalysis, are assembled at a site near the sarcophagus?' […] '[W]hat we know is this, they collect the plutonium, etc, from Chernobyl, what they don't...2012, Tom Bryson, chapter 35, in Sarcophagus, S.l.: TJB Books, →ISBN, page 231
3. (broadly, historical) A type of wine cooler (“a piece of equipment used to keep wine chilled”) shaped like a sarcophagus (sense 1).
   • There is an open sarcophagus-shaped wine-cooler beneath, standing on a plinth. The inside of the wine-cooler may either be lined with lead, or it may contain a block-tin case, with handles, to lift out. Ice is frequently put into these wine-coolers, in order to surround the decanters or bottles set...1833, J[ohn] C[laudius] Loudon, “Of the Furniture of Villas”, in An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture; […], London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman...
4. (historical, obsolete except Ancient Greece) A kind of limestone used by the Ancient Greeks for coffins, so called because it was thought to consume the flesh of corpses.
   • Near unto Aſſos, a citie in Troas, there is found in the quarries a certaine ſtone called Sarcophagus, vvhich runneth in a direct veine, and is apt to be cloven and ſo cut out of the rocke by flakes: The reaſon of the name is this, becauſe that vvithin the ſpace of fortie daies it is knovvne for...1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XXXVI.] Of Certaine Stones which will Quickly Consume the Bodies that be Laid therein. Of Others Againe that Preserve Them a Long Time....

See all 5 meanings of sarcophagus