epithalamium

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin epithalamium, itself borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalámion, “bridal song”), neuter form of ἐπιθαλάμιος (epithalámios), from ἐπί (epí, “upon”) + θάλαμος (thálamos, “inner chamber, wedding chamber”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɛpɪθəˈleɪmɪəm/

Noun

epithalamium (plural epithalamiums or epithalamia)

  1. A song or poem celebrating a marriage.
    • 1886 October – 1887 January, H Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      Softly she laughed and sighed, and swift her glances flew. She shook her heavy tresses, and their perfume filled the place; she struck her little sandalled foot upon the floor, and hummed a snatch of some old Greek epithalamium.
    • 1976, Choice - Volume 13, Issues 8-12, page 1300:
      He has wittily redone a tardy epithalamium and some nursery rhymes ("Three blind eunuchs"), and deftly catches the cozy lawnfuls of plastic dwarfs and flamingos, outside the kenneled people.
  2. (Ancient Greece) A song in praise of the bride or bridegroom
    • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii:
      The Caves of Ajanta, the medieval Courts of Love, the epithalamia of the erotic poets all testify to the glorification of manhood, the supremacy of the sex motif.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalámion), neuter form of Ancient Greek ἐπιθαλάμιος (epithalámios), from ἐπί (epí, “upon”) + θάλαμος (thálamos, “inner chamber, wedding chamber”).

Pronunciation

Noun

epithalamium n (genitive epithalamiī or epithalamī); second declension

  1. epithalamium
    • c. 35 CE – 100 CE, Quintilian, The Orator's Education 9.3.16:
      Catullus in epithalamio: dum innupta manet, dum cara suis est
      Catullus in his epithalamium: While she remains unwed and so long as she remains dear to her own.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

singular plural
nominative epithalamium epithalamia
genitive epithalamiī
epithalamī1 		epithalamiōrum
dative epithalamiō epithalamiīs
accusative epithalamium epithalamia
ablative epithalamiō epithalamiīs
vocative epithalamium epithalamia

1Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Alternative forms

Descendants

Descendants

References

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia