Lethe

Translingual

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Proper noun

Lethe f

1. A taxonomic genus within the family Nymphalidae – butterflies of southeastern Asia and North America, called tree browns, wood browns, and foresters.

Hypernyms

• (genus): Eukaryota – superkingdom; Animalia – kingdom; Bilateria – subkingdom; Protostomia – infrakingdom; Ecdysozoa – superphylum; Arthropoda – phylum; Hexapoda – subphylum; Insecta – class; Pterygota – subclass; Neoptera – infraclass; Lepidoptera – order; Glossata - suborder; Heteroneura - infraorder; Ditrysia - division; Cossina - section; Bombycina - subsection; Papilionoidea - superfamily; Papilioniformes - series; Nymphalidae - family; Satyrinae - subfamily; Satyrini - tribe; Lethina - subtribe

Hyponyms

• (genus): Lethe europa (bamboo treebrown) - type species

References

• Lethe (butterfly) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Lethe on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Lethe on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Lethe

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Latin Lēthē, from Ancient Greek Λήθη (Lḗthē).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈliːθi/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːθi

Proper noun

Lethe

1. (Greek mythology) The personification of oblivion, daughter of Eris.
2. (Greek mythology) The river which flows through Hades from which the souls of the dead drank so that they would forget their time on Earth.

   Coordinate terms: Acheron, Cocytus, Eridanos, Phlegethon, Styx

   • 1740, David Garrick, Lethe: or Aesop in the Shade‎, published 1782:

     No wonder these mortal Folks have so many Complaints, […] if they were dead now, and to be settled here for ever, they'd be damn'd before they'd make such a Rout come over—“But care, I suppose, is thirsty; and till they have drench’d themselves with Lethe, there will be no quiet among ’em” however, I’ll e’en to work; and so, friend Æsop, and brother Mercury, good bye to ye.

   • 1820, John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale:

     My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, / Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains / One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter IV, in The French Revolution: A History , volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book IV (States-General):

     For two-and-twenty years he [Doctor Guillotin], unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive Cæsar’s.

   • 1890, William Booth, chapter 6, in In Darkest England and the Way Out‎:

     A well-fed man is not driven to drink by the craving that torments the hungry; and the comfortable do not crave for the boon of forgetfulness. Gin is the only Lethe of the miserable.

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”, in Intentions:

     When we have done penance, and are purified, and have drunk of the fountain of Lethe and bathed in the fountain of Eunoe, the mistress of our soul raises us to the Paradise of Heaven.

   • 2015, Peter E. Meltzer, The Thinker's Thesaurus, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN:

     oblivion n.: Lethe. In Greek mythology, Lethe (pronounced LEEthee) is one of the several rivers of Hades. Those who drink from it experience complete forgetfulness. Today it is used to refer to one in an oblivious or forgetful state.

Derived terms

• Lethean

Related terms

• lethargy, lethargic

Translations

Anagrams

• Ethel, Leeth, Theel, ethel

German

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Lēthē.

Proper noun

Lethe f (genitive Lethes or Lethe)

1. (mythology, literary) Lethe
   • 1924, Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain], volume 1, Berlin: S. Fischer, page 13:

     Zeit, sagt man, ist Lethe; aber auch Fernluft ist so ein Trank, und sollte sie weniger gründlich wirken, so tut sie es dafür desto rascher.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Further reading

• “Lethe” in Duden online
• “Lethe” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Λήθη (Lḗthē).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈleː.tʰeː/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈle.te/,

Proper noun

Lēthē f sg (genitive Lēthēs); first declension (Greek)

1. (Greek mythology) the river Lethe, the river of oblivion

Declension

First-declension noun (Greek-type), with locative, singular only.

Derived terms

• Lēthaeus

References

• “Lethe”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “Lethe”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Lethe in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.