ORPHEUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

• ORPHEUS (noun)
  The noun ORPHEUS has 1 sense:

1. (Greek mythology) a great musician; when his wife Eurydice died he went to Hades to get her back but failed

  Familiarity information: ORPHEUS used as a noun is very rare.

• ORPHEUS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(Greek mythology) a great musician; when his wife Eurydice died he went to Hades to get her back but failed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

mythical being (an imaginary being of myth or fable)

Domain category:

Greek mythology (the mythology of the ancient Greeks)

Derivation:

Orphic (ascribed to Orpheus or characteristic of ideas in works ascribed to Orpheus)

 Context examples 

My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can make unlovely noises. My ear-drums are pierced. You outwhistle— Orpheus.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)