Definition of "saturnalia" []

• The ancient Roman seven-day festival of Saturn, which began on December 17. (noun-plural)
• A celebration marked by unrestrained revelry and often licentiousness; an orgy. (noun-plural)

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.

• "We have to realize that not everyone observes Christmas as anything other than a "saturnalia" - a pagan festival."
• "What makes his '' short history '' so compelling is how Inglis combines an eye for captivating detail (the actor David Garrick being forced to kneel by a '' jeering audience ''), the illuminating comparison (Sarah Bernhardt versus Lola Montez, Hitler versus Edward VIII), and the synoptic view ( ''A Very Short History of the Feelings' '), with the inspired fulmination:' 'The encouragement of spite, envy, and malice needs very little by way of context; the present treatment of celebrity is a kind of saturnalia, which is to say, a ritualised occasion for the display and indulgence of antisocial feeling.' '"
• "After this there came all the bustle of packing and preparation for departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge -- a saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with her white throat set off by a black ribbon and a gold locket?"