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.
Sarcophagus 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 Jubélé 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 lithos 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,