Bacchanalian
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A bacchanal; a drunken reveler.
"With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the bacchanalian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude."
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Bacchanalian. alt-of
"With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the bacchanalian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude."
- 1 Of or pertaining to the festival of Bacchus, relating to or given to reveling and drunkenness. Greek, Roman, not-comparable
"Near-synonyms: bacchic, bacchian; Dionysiac, Dionysian; dionysiac, dionysian"
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Bacchanalian. alt-of, not-comparable
"Within three hours we'd drunk the place dry. Miraculously, we all made it back on the bus, but I've never seen a more bacchanalian scene of wanton debauchery than the ride back to the hotel."
- 3 Of or resembling wild or unrestrained revelry. broadly, not-comparable
"The dancing and shouting of the children around the fire had become even more bacchanalian."
- 1 used of riotously drunken merrymaking wordnet
Example
More examples"Ortygia's port we leave, and skim the mere; / soon Naxos' Bacchanalian hills appear, / and past Olearos and Donysa, crowned / with trees, and Paros' snowy cliffs we steer. / Far-scattered shine the Cyclades renowned, / and clustering isles thick-sown in many a glittering sound."
Etymology
From Bacchanalia + -an.
More for "bacchanalian"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.