bacchanal Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun someone who engages in drinking bouts
    drunken reveller; drunken reveler; bacchant.
  2. noun a drunken reveller; a devotee of Bacchus
    bacchant.
  3. noun a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity
    bacchanalia; saturnalia; riot; debauch; drunken revelry; debauchery; orgy.
  4. adjective satellite used of riotously drunken merrymaking
    bacchic; orgiastic; bacchanalian; carousing.
    • a night of bacchanalian revelry
    • carousing bands of drunken soldiers
    • orgiastic festivity

WordNet

Bac"cha*nal adjective
Etymology
L. Bacchanalis. See Bacchanalia.
Definitions
  1. Relating to Bacchus or his festival.
  2. Engaged in drunken revels; drunken and riotous or noisy.
Bac"cha*nal noun
Definitions
  1. A devotee of Bacchus; one who indulges in drunken revels; one who is noisy and riotous when intoxicated; a carouser. "Tipsy bacchanals." Shak.
  2. pl. The festival of Bacchus; the bacchanalia.
  3. Drunken revelry; an orgy.
  4. A song or dance in honor of Bacchus.

Webster 1913