Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The eating of raw food, especially raw flesh.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the eating of raw food, especially raw flesh

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the eating of raw food

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Greek ωμοφαγια, from ωμος ‘raw’.

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Examples

  • An awful lot of authorities claim that no play of Seneca's was ever performed, or that Titus Andronicus is a bad play rather than what it is, a brutal play, or otherwise talk as if theater didn't begin as Dionysian orgy complete with omophagia.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2008

  • The wild maenads of Dionysus, for example, were said to have devoured the raw flesh of an animal in their omophagia, or feast of flesh… the descriptions of the raw feast suggest that participants believed they were consuming the god himself…In the mysteries of Mithra, the initiates partook of a ceremony that was so reminiscent of the Christian ‘Lord’s Supper’ that it proved an embarrassment to the Christian apologist Justin Martyr.

    The Templar Revelation Lynn Picknett 2004

  • The wild maenads of Dionysus, for example, were said to have devoured the raw flesh of an animal in their omophagia, or feast of flesh… the descriptions of the raw feast suggest that participants believed they were consuming the god himself…In the mysteries of Mithra, the initiates partook of a ceremony that was so reminiscent of the Christian ‘Lord’s Supper’ that it proved an embarrassment to the Christian apologist Justin Martyr.

    The Templar Revelation Lynn Picknett 2004

  • [ "This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia -- the eating and drinking of another person's or animal's flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on.

    About.com Agnosticism / Atheism 2009

  • [ "This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia -- the eating and drinking of another person's or animal's flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on.

    About.com Agnosticism / Atheism 2009

  • [ "This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia -- the eating and drinking of another person's or animal's flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on.

    About.com Agnosticism / Atheism 2009

  • [ "This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia -- the eating and drinking of another person's or animal's flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on.

    About.com Agnosticism / Atheism 2009

  • [ "This ignorant Christian custom of eating and drinking commonplace bread and wine in the hope of gaining some Christlike virtue is but a relic of the savage rite of omophagia -- the eating and drinking of another person's or animal's flesh and blood to acquire his or its qualities, strength, courage, and so on.

    About.com Agnosticism / Atheism 2009

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  • Mind the E. coli and other animalcules.

    December 27, 2010