orgy
noun
Simple meaning
Secret rite in the cults of ancient Greek or Roman deities involving singing and dancing and drinking and sexual activity.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
awrjeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɔɹdʒi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A gathering of people to engage in group sex.
originally
Secret rite in the cults of ancient Greek or Roman deities involving singing and dancing and drinking and sexual activity
originally
A secret rite or ceremony, typically involving riotous and dissolute behavior, including dancing, drunkenness and indiscriminate sexual activity, undertaken in honor of various pagan gods or goddesses (such as Attis, Bacchus, Ceres, Dionysus, Osiris, etc). [from 16th c.]
An instance or period of excessive indulgence in a specified activity; spree.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Secret rite in the cults of ancient Greek or Roman deities involving singing and dancing and drinking and sexual activity
Used this way, orgy is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use orgy
- “An orgy of shopping.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.