epithalamium
/ɛpɪθəˈleɪmɪəm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.27 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
6
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A song or poem celebrating a marriage.
noun
A song in praise of the bride or bridegroom
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épi Proto-Hellenic *epí Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí) Ancient Greek ἐπῐ- (epĭ-) Ancient Greek θάλαμος (thálamos) Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Ancient Greek -ιος (-ios) Ancient Greek ἐπιθαλάμιος (epithalámios) Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Hellenic *-on Ancient Greek -ον (-on) Ancient Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον (epithalámion)bor. Latin epithalamiumlbor. English epithalamium 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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ἐπιθαλάμιον