This week’s theme
Eponyms from Greek mythology

This week’s words
orphic
myrmidon
nemesis
amazon
muse

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(OR-fik)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Melodious; entrancing.
2. Mystical; occult.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Orpheus, a musician, poet, and prophet in Greek mythology. His lyre-playing and singing could charm animals, trees, and even rocks. After his wife Eurydice, a nymph, died of a snakebite, he traveled to the underworld to bring her back. His music melted the heart of Hades, the god of the underworld, who allowed him to take his wife back on the condition that he not look back at her until they had reached the world of the living. They had almost made it when he looked back and lost her again. His mother Calliope/Kalliope has also given a word to the English language: calliopean. Earliest documented use: 1656.

USAGE:

“Rana’s playing has a kind of Orphic seductiveness.”
Hugh Canning, et al; Classical; The Sunday Times (London, UK); Feb 19, 2017.

“‘Rumi’s Secret’ is a strangely dry read considering it has a literally whirling mystic as its subject. As if fearing that too lyrical an approach to such an orphic figure would result in incoherence, Gooch describes this poet’s life in a decidedly unpoetic way.”
Alexander C. Kafka; The Mysterious Life of America’s Most Popular Poet; The Washington Post; Jan 19, 2017.

See more usage examples of orphic in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: