Wiktionary:Word of the day/2022/November 6

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Word of the day
for November 6
sarcophagus n
  1. A stone coffin, often with its exterior inscribed, or decorated with sculpture.
  2. (by extension)
    1. (informal) The cement and steel structure that encases the destroyed nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
    2. (historical) A type of wine cooler (“a piece of equipment used to keep wine chilled”) shaped like a sarcophagus (sense 1).
  3. (obsolete except Ancient Greece, historical) A kind of limestone used by the Ancient Greeks for coffins, so called because it was thought to consume the flesh of corpses.

sarcophagus v

  1. (transitive) To enclose (a corpse, etc.) in a sarcophagus (noun sense 1).

The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered 100 years ago on 4 November 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. It was the first known largely intact royal burial from Ancient Egypt.

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