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Τάρταρος. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Τάρταρος, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
Τάρταρος in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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Τάρταρος, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Ancient Greek
Etymology
According to Strabo, this word had been fancifully believed to have been invented by Homer with the city of Ταρτησσός (Tartēssós) in mind, with a slight change of letters, it being west of the Ἡράκλειοι Στῆλαι (Hērákleioi Stêlai), or Pillars of Heracles, beyond which the sun sinks past Oceanus as it enters into Tartarus. A semantic connection of Definition 2 with the doomed, sunken civilization of Atlantis has not been overlooked.
Klein suggests (at least partly) otherwise: "prob word of imitative origin, suggestive of something frightful."
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tár.ta.ros/ → /ˈtar.ta.ros/ → /ˈtar.ta.ros/
Proper noun
Τάρτᾰρος • (Tártaros) m (genitive Ταρτᾰ́ρου); second declension
- Tartarus
- (Christendom) metaphor for Hell
Inflection
Derived terms
Descendants
See also
References
- “Τάρταρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “Τάρταρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “Τάρταρος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
- Τάρταρος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
- “Τάρταρος”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
- Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, page 1,026