;Posted on 11/24/2015 7:19:28 PM PST by Louis Foxwell
;In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day".
Stygian [STIJ ee un]
adjective
With an upper case S, describes anything relating to the River Styx, the river, according to classical mythology, over which Charon ferried the souls of the departed on their journey into the underworld. He charged a fee of one obol, a coin which was placed in the mouth of the deceased, for use in payment of that fee. From that dreadful river, the adjective stygian came to mean "dark, gloomy, forbidding," or "infernal." and one may speak of stygian night or a stygian cave or landscape, or a stygian room or hallway, dark, gloomy, forbidding.
Stygian takes on an entirely different meaning in the expression stygian oath: an oath "by the Styx" sworn by a god, a "stygian oath" is inviolable.
The Roman poet Virgil (70-19B.C.) in The Aeneid, writes of "the swamp of the Styx, by which the gods take oath."
The adjective in Latin was Stygias, in Greek Stygios.
The English poet John Milton (1608-1674) starts his poem L'Allegro with the lines:
Hence, loathed McLancholy,
Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born,
in Stygian cave forlorn,
'Midst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy....
Seems racist.
Goood morning linguists.
Here is a word we all know and rarely use. Perhaps the time has come. It is the hour of darkness descending as a knell upon our enfeebled heads.
A favorite word of mine.
A most unseemly interjection, but, not without merit.
“Make me a martini.”
“Sure. Where stygian and olives??
Hillary Clinton’s stygian soul would give Charon himself the chills.
You hate gays....with so much of a stygian heart....
Never knew it was pronounced that way and always used the “g”....
I ain’t stygian on anybody ‘cause I didn’t do nut’n.
Great word!
Stygian... the best! i would sell hagga to a slayer such as you???
A stygian clawed toddler hawk zoomed into our big maple tree & carried away a smaller bird. Many feathers flew & I was in awe for about a minute. That was one fast sucker!
They gave up the dark and brooding style of their early recordings (on the Wooden Nickle label) and sold their Stygian souls to the honchos at A&M Records in exchange for fame, fortune and power ballads. ;-)
“Stygian witches” was the term an A.C.E. Member recently referred to me as their 3 woman environmental oversight department...
During this Nativity Fast (Advent) season, we are called upon—with God’s help—to rise above the stygian depths of our sins, and of this fallen world—through fasting, Confession, the Divine Liturgy, and—yes—Thanksgiving!!!!
Blessed Thanksgiving (both the Holy Eucharist and the American November Feast) to all!!!!
No wonder I hate everything by the band Styx.
stygian:
adj.
a. Gloomy and dark.
b. Infernal; hellish.
A: A stygian time save nine.
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