Bacchae

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of female followers of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, known for their ecstatic rituals and celebrations
2. Women who participate in the frenzied worship of Bacchus, often engaging in wild dances and intoxication
3. Devotees of the deity Bacchus, representing liberation through ecstatic revelry and communal festivities

Etymology: Bacchae is the Latin plural of "Bacchus" (itself borrowed from Greek "Bakkhos"), so the English word is a plural form taken straight from Latin rather than formed in English. In the Greek tradition, the followers of the god were called "Bakkhai" (the Bacchantes), and the most famous literary treatment is Euripides' tragedy "Bacchae," in which the women of Thebes, driven into ecstasy by the god, tear apart King Pentheus, who has tried to spy on their rites. The Greek name was itself linked to the god's own cult epithets, and the women were thought to be possessed by the god, which is why their behaviour was described as frenzied. In Roman usage, "Bacchae" and the related "Bacchantes" carried the same sense of wild, ecstatic revelry, and Latin writers adopted the Greek picture of the god's female followers wholesale. Since English took the word from Latin and Greek sources, its meaning has stayed close to its classical sense: a group of ecstatic female worshippers of Bacchus, not a general term for drunken partygoers.