lethe
/ˈliːθi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.03 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The personification of oblivion, daughter of Eris.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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:"
- "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."
- "By the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of, / Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight, / Ghosts of outcast women return lamenting, / Purged not in Lethe,"
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
From Latin Lēthē, from Ancient Greek Λήθη (Lḗthē).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Lēthē, Λήθη