Definition of Prometheus

1. Noun. (Greek mythology) the Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to mankind; Zeus punished him by chaining him to a rock where an eagle gnawed at his liver until Hercules rescued him.

Category relationships: Greek Mythology
Generic synonyms: Titan

Definition of Prometheus

1. n. The son of Iapetus (one of the Titans) and Clymene, fabled by the poets to have surpassed all mankind in knowledge, and to have formed men of clay to whom he gave life by means of fire stolen from heaven. Jupiter, being angry at this, sent Mercury to bind Prometheus to Mount Caucasus, where a vulture preyed upon his liver.

Definition of Prometheus

1. Proper noun. (Ancient Greek male given name) ¹

2. Proper noun. (Greek god) The Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from Zeus in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use. The god of fire and craft. ¹

3. Proper noun. (astronomy) A moon of the planet Saturn. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Lexicographical Neighbors of Prometheus

Progne subis
Programmes
Programms
Progressive
Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party
Progressive Party
Progressives
Prohibition
Prohibition Party
Prokhorov
Prokofiev
Prolog
Promethean
Prometheans
Prometheus
Prometheus-type
Promised Land
Promzilla
Promzillas
Property P
Prophet
Prophets
Prosauropoda
Prosecco
Proseccos
Proserpina
Proserpine
Prosimii
Prosopis

Literary usage of Prometheus

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1919)
"But prometheus, pierced by our human miseries, champions the old race: he steals fire from heaven and teaches the arts to insensate creatures. ..."

2. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1917)
"While giving the history of Deukalion, whom the Boeotians regarded as the ancestor of the human races, and who was the Son of prometheus, according to the ..."

3. The Tragic Drama of the Greeks by Arthur Elam Haigh (1896)
"(4) The prometheus. Though the date of the prometheus Bound is nowhere mentioned, the general structure of the play, in which the choral odes are completely ..."

4. Greek and Roman [mythology] by William Sherwood Fox (1916)
"In the myths of prometheus and of Pandora we shall see it most attractively brought ... prometheus is ... the type of the highest perfection of moral and ..."

5. The Harvard Classics by Charles William Eliot (1909)
"ESTOS, STRENGTH, and FORCE, leading prometheus in ... and (2) prometheus does not speak till Strength and Force have retired, and that it i» therefore ..."

6. Calcutta Review by University of Calcutta (1921)
"SHELLEY'S prometheus AND MILTON'S SATAN NITISH KUMAR BASU For those who suffer for righteousness" sake, the name of prometheus is one to conjure with—The ..."

7. The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge edited by George Ripley, Charles Anderson Dana (1883)
"prometheus, in Grecian mythology, the son of Japetus and Clymene, ... prometheus, as the tutelary representative of man, divided а bull into two parts, ..."

Other Resources:

Search for Prometheus on Dictionary.com!Search for Prometheus on Thesaurus.com!Search for Prometheus on Google!Search for Prometheus on Wikipedia!