saturnalia

UK/ˌsætəˈneɪli.ə//ˌsætɚˈneɪli.ə/

saturnalia noun: a period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence; a period of unrestrained revelry.

Noun (1)

saturnalia (plural saturnalias)

A period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence; a period of unrestrained revelry.
- a man who mounts the Hustings, must not allow himself to be sore-boned, or he invites his opponents to 'touch him on the raw,' not in the exercise of their malice, but their power; an election is a saturnalia."1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LXX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 260
- They lodged men and women on the same floor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery—scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America.1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XXVI, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Saturnalia

Saturnalia or the Saturnalia sg or pl (plural Saturnalias)

(historical) An Ancient Roman holiday honoring the deity Saturn.
- Saturn was an ancient Italian deity. It was attempted to identify him with the Grecian god Cronos, and fabled that after his dethronement by Jupiter he fled to Italy, where he reigned during what was called the Golden Age. In memory of his beneficent dominion, the feast of Saturnalia was held every...1913, Thomas Bulfinch, chapter 1, in The Age of Fable
- CATULLUS described the Saturnalia as “the merriest festival of the year,” and Seneca [the Younger] reported that “all Rome seemed to go mad on this holiday.” The Saturnalia, named for Saturnus, an ancient agricultural deity, began on Dec. 17.1978 December 13, Lorna J. Sass, “Saturnalia: A Feast Fit for a Roman God”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jan 2021
Synonyms:

Saturnalians, Saturnals

Noun (2) capitalized: Saturnalia

Saturnalia (plural Saturnalias)

Alternative letter-case form of saturnalia.
- It was odd that the literary festival should be turned into a Donnybrook fair, but so it was when I was a boy, and the tents and the shows and the crowds on the Common were to the promiscuous many the essential parts of the great occasion. They had been so for generations, and it was only gradually...1890 October, Oliver Wendell Holmes [Sr.], “Over the Teacups”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 Mar 2023
- For New York Times photographers, it has been a night to leave their families in order to document the Saturnalia of Times Square.2015 December 25, John Leland, “New Years Eve, Times Square, Through the Years”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Dec...

saturnalia meaning in Hindi

saturnalia in Hindi

unrestrained revelry: भोग-विलास bhog-vilās

Examples of saturnalia in a sentence

Such Saturnalias are not uncommon at some stages of social evolution.1922, James Frazer, chapter 14, in The Golden Bough:
Yet if he remained, it would simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe's crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable.1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter XXVIII, in Captain Blood: His Odyssy:
It was a raw, violent, guzzling saturnalia that spilled obstreperously through the woods to the officers' club and spread up into the hills toward the hospital and the antiaircraft-gun emplacements.1961, Joseph Heller, chapter 34, in Catch-22:
We advanced into the main hall, already aroar with a saturnalia of sozzled gestures and gibbering.2001, Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys:

Synonyms of saturnalia

Forms of saturnalia

Noun
plural	saturnalias
alternative form	Saturnalia
plural	Saturnalias
Proper noun
plural	Saturnalias

Origin of saturnalia

From Saturnalia (“a festival of the winter solstice”).

Learned borrowing from Latin Sāturnālia.

Words formed from saturnalia

Words that rhyme with saturnalia

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about saturnalia

What does saturnalia mean?: Saturnalia means a period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence; a period of unrestrained revelry.
What is saturnalia in Hindi?: Saturnalia in Hindi is भोग-विलास (bhog-vilās). See Saturnalia meaning in Hindi.
How do you use saturnalia in a sentence?: Such Saturnalias are not uncommon at some stages of social evolution.
What part of speech is saturnalia?: Saturnalia can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce saturnalia?: Saturnalia is pronounced /ˌsætəˈneɪli.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of saturnalia?: The plural of saturnalia is saturnalias.

Words near saturnalia in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: saturnalia (page history and authors); Saturnalia (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-saturnalia.ogg.

Cite this entry: “saturnalia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/saturnalia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.