naumachia

Learned borrowing from Latin naumachia, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ναυμαχία (naumakhía). Compare naumachy.

• Rhymes: -eɪkiə

naumachia (plural naumachias or naumachiae)

1. (historical, nautical, in Ancient Rome) The recreation of a sea battle staged for entertainment. [from 16th c.]
   • 1816, John Keats, Sonnet - Before he went to feed with owls and bats, Wordsworth Editions, published 1994, page 270:

     BEFORE he went to feed with owls and bats
     
     Nebuchadnezzar had an ugly dream,
     
     Worse than an Hus'if's when she thinks her cream
     
     Made a Naumachia for mice and rats.

2. (historical) The location where such recreated sea battles took place; a building featuring an artificial body of water. [from 17th c.]
   • 1962, WH Auden, Elizabeth Mayer, translating JW Goethe, Italian Journey, Penguin, published 1970, page 286:

     Our clerical guide did not fail us, but took us to see some ancient architectural remains, water tanks, a naumachia and other ruins of a similar sort.

naumachia f (plural naumachie)

1. naumachia

• navmachia

From Ancient Greek ναυμαχία (naumakhía).

naumachia f (genitive naumachiae); first declension

1. naumachia
2. an artificial lake for such a battle

First-declension noun.

• “naumachia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• naumachia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “naumachia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “naumachia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin