‖ sarcophagus
(sɑːˈkɒfəgəs)
Pl. -phagi (fədʒaɪ). Also 8 -fagus.
[L., a. Gr. σαρκοϕάγος, orig. adj., f. σαρκο-, σάρξ flesh + -ϕάγος eating.]
1. A kind of stone reputed among the Greeks to have the property of consuming the flesh of dead bodies deposited in it, and consequently used for coffins. Obs. exc. Antiq.
| 1601 Holland Pliny xxxvi. xvii. II. 587 Near vnto Assos, a city in Troas, there is found in the quarries a certaine stone called Sarcophagus. a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) II. 461 His Entrails are like the Sarcophagus, that devours dead Bodies in a small Space. 1750 tr. Leonardus' Mirr. Stones 232 Sarcofagus, is a Stone of which the Antients built their Monuments, and took its Name from its Effect. |
2. A stone coffin,
esp. one embellished with sculptures or bearing inscriptions, etc.
| 1705 Addison Italy (1733) 198 Several Sarcophagi that have inclosed the Ashes of Men or Boys, Maids or Matrons. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) I. 285 A sarcophagus with ribbed work and mouldings. 1838 Murray Handbk. N. Germ. 103 Their effigies, formed of Italian alabaster, repose upon a sarcophagus. 1838 Arnold Hist. Rome (1846) I. 325 The sarcophagus which contained the bones of L. Cornelius Scipio was discovered in 1780. 1869 Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 63 Suphis I, the builder of the ‘Third Pyramid’ which contained his sarcophagus. |
| fig. 1619 Purchas Microcosmus xxxv. 329 This (venter impiorum insaturabilis)..consumes..generally twice a day all the flesh therein interred; so true a Sarcophagus is the belly. 1855 Motley Dutch Rep. Introd. xiv. 85 The monastic spirit..which now kept it [sc. learning]..stiffening in the stony sarcophagus of a bygone age. 1870 tr. Pouchet's Universe (1871) 98 The Emperor Moth..emerges from its horny sarcophagus without catching a hair of its velvet wings against it. |
3. A flesh-eating person or animal. ?
Obs.| 1617 Collins Def. Bp. Ely ii. x. 420 No Transformators, no such sauage Sarcophagi, as S. Cyrill bends his penne against. 1864 Pusey Lect. Daniel vii. 429 Dr. Browne informs me; ‘There are met with in asylums sarcophagi, individuals who have desired to eat..human flesh.’ |
4. A wine-cooler.
| 1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. 1045 Fig. 1871 is a pedestal sideboard... There is an open sarcophagus-shaped wine cooler beneath... Castors are sunk into the plinth of the sarcophagus. |
Hence
sarˈcophagus v. trans., to deposit or enclose in a sarcophagus.
| 1862 Miss Mulock in Macm. Mag. V. 464 The handful of mere dust that lies Sarcophagused in stone and lead. 1888 W. H. H. Rogers Mem. of West App. 391 She rests in a wedge-shaped coffin, which is sarcophagused within the tomb in the presbytery. |