Definition of "bacchanal" [bac•cha•nal]

• A participant in the Bacchanalia. (noun)
• The Bacchanalia. Often used in the plural. (noun)
• A drunken or riotous celebration. (noun)
• A reveler. (noun)
• Of, relating to, or typical of the worship of Bacchus. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Lena was explaining the word bacchanal when Violet and Glo arrived at the back door."
• "It's about a king who literally gets eaten alive by all the women in the play in a kind of orgy-it's related to the word 'bacchanal'-and I loved that idea of animalistic chaos and following our own desires. ""
• "As African-descended (including Indo- and Euro-Caribbean) peoples bring their cultures to urban spaces which are heavily policed, bordered, and confined, some interesting frictions emerge when the people break down fences (which occurred at Caribana) to join floats and dance behind enormous trucks with their booming sound systems, insisting on the politics of "bacchanal" (anything goes) and "chaos theory" while resisting the orderly ways of the state."