It's the Word of the Day podcast for February 3rd.

Today's word is sarcophagus, spelled S-A-R-C-O-P-H-A-G-U-S. Sarcofagus is a noun. It refers to a coffin and specifically a stone coffin.

Here's the word used in a sentence from art news by Francesca Aiton. Experts found as many as

1,035 artwork fragments, as well as 100 graves, increasing the cathedral's total record

to more than 500 burials.

Many of the coffins, along with scattered bones, remain unidentified.

A lead sarcophagus that may belong to the poet Joaquin du Belle is among one of the more notable

burials.

Body-eating coffins might sound like something out of a horror

film, but flesh-eating stone? The latter plays a role in the etymology of the word sarcophagus.

It's the literal translation of Litos sarcophagus, the Greek phrase that underlies the English term,

the phrase traveled through Latin between Greek and English, taking on the form lapis sarcophagus before being shortened to sarcophagus.

It's not clear whether the ancient Romans believed that a certain type of limestone from the region

around Troy would dissolve flesh and thus

was desirable for making coffins. That assertion came from the Roman scholar Pliny the elder,

but he also reported such phenomena as dog-headed people and elephants who wrote Greek.

Regardless, there is no doubt that the ancient Greek word for the limestone traces back to a

combination of sarks, meaning flesh, and a derivative of phagine, a verb meaning to eat.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.