173-471: Hecate ( / ˈ h ɛ k ə t i / HEK -ə-tee ) is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology , most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated with crossroads , night, light, magic , protection from witchcraft , drugs, and the Moon . Her earliest appearance in literature
346-504: A Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina . In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses (see also Arinna ) based on similar attributes. The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous but of late date. If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, then it possibly presented a conflict, as her role
519-404: A symposium . One rite of passage was the amphidromia , celebrated on the fifth or seventh day after the birth of a child. Childbirth was extremely significant to Athenians, especially if the baby was a boy. One ceremony was pharmakos , a ritual involving expelling a symbolic scapegoat such as a slave or an animal, from a city or village in a time of hardship. It was hoped that by casting out
692-550: A "federal language" shows his competing impulses towards regularity and innovation in historical terms. Perhaps the contradictions of Webster's project represented a part of a larger dialectical play between liberty and order within Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary political debates. Noah Webster's assistant, and later chief competitor, Joseph Emerson Worcester , and Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich, published an abridgment of Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of
865-497: A 7th-century indication of the survival of cult practices of this general sort, Saint Eligius , in his Sermo warns the sick among his recently converted flock in Flanders against putting "devilish charms at springs or trees or crossroads", and, according to Saint Ouen would urge them "No Christian should make or render any devotion to the deities of the trivium, where three roads meet...". Thanks to her association with boundaries and
1038-509: A Greek etymology and suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Early Modern English , the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as / ˈ h ɛ k . ɪ t / ) and sometimes spelled Hecat . It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e , well into the 19th century. The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding 's 1567 translation of Ovid 's Metamorphoses , and this spelling without
1211-482: A certain city. Athena was associated with Athens , Apollo with Delphi and Delos , Zeus with Olympia and Aphrodite with Corinth . But other gods were also worshipped in these cities. Other deities were associated with nations outside of Greece; Poseidon was associated with Ethiopia and Troy , and Ares with Thrace . Identity of names was not a guarantee of a similar cultus ; the Greeks themselves were well aware that
1384-475: A city, keeping an eye on all who entered, and in the road in front of private houses, protecting their inhabitants. This function would appear to have some relationship with the iconographic association of Hecate with keys, and might also relate to her appearance with two torches, which when positioned on either side of a gate or door illuminated the immediate area and allowed visitors to be identified. "In Byzantium small temples in her honour were placed close to
1557-465: A collection of beliefs, rituals , and mythology , in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices . The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic . The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of
1730-438: A contract with Webster's heirs for sole rights. The third printing of the second edition was by George and Charles Merriam of Springfield, Massachusetts , in 1845. This was the first Webster's Dictionary with a Merriam imprint. Lepore (2008) demonstrates Webster's innovative ideas about language and politics and shows why Webster's endeavors were at first so poorly received. Culturally conservative Federalists denounced
1903-538: A decade of preparation, G. & C. Merriam issued the entirely new Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (commonly known as Webster's Third , or W3 ) in September 1961. The dictionary was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach. The dictionary's treatment of "ain't" was subject to particular scorn, since it seemed to overrule
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#17328583528802076-439: A different story of a woman transformed into a polecat: I have heard that the polecat was once a human being. It has also reached my hearing that Gale was her name then; that she was a dealer in spells and a sorceress ( pharmakis ); that she was extremely lascivious, and that she was afflicted with abnormal sexual desires. Nor has it escaped my notice that the anger of the goddess Hekate transformed it into this evil creature. May
2249-552: A disembodied soul. Some Greeks, such as the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato , also embraced the idea of reincarnation , though this was only accepted by a few. Epicurus taught that the soul was simply atoms which were dissolved at death, so one ceased to exist on dying. Greek religion had an extensive mythology . It consisted largely of stories of the gods and how they interacted with humans. Myths often revolved around heroes and their actions, such as Heracles and his twelve labors , Odysseus and his voyage home, Jason and
2422-422: A few gods, and supported a statue of the particular deity. Votive deposits were left at the altar, such as food, drinks, as well as precious objects. Sometimes animal sacrifices were performed here, with most of the flesh taken for eating and the offal burnt as an offering to the gods. Libations , often of wine, would be offered to the gods as well, not only at shrines, but also in everyday life, such as during
2595-460: A foreign origin for the name may be Heqet ( ḥqt ), a frog-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, like Hecate, was also associated with ḥqꜣ , ruler. The word heka in the Egyptian language is also both the word for "magic" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka . Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of
2768-410: A fragment of verse: O mistress Hecate, Trioditis With three forms and three faces Propitiated with mullets. In relation to Greek concepts of pollution, Parker observes, The fish that was most commonly banned was the red mullet ( trigle ), which fits neatly into the pattern. It 'delighted in polluted things', and 'would eat the corpse of a fish or a man'. Blood-coloured itself, it was sacred to
2941-412: A goddess who could also refuse to avert the demons, or even drive them on against unfortunate individuals. It was probably her role as guardian of entrances that led to Hecate's identification by the mid fifth century with Enodia , a Thessalian goddess. Enodia's very name ("In-the-Road") suggests that she watched over entrances, for it expresses both the possibility that she stood on the main road into
3114-459: A good deal about cult but very little about creed, in no small measure because the Greeks in general considered what one believed to be much less importance than what one did. The Greeks believed in an underworld inhabited by the spirits of the dead. One of the most widespread areas of this underworld was ruled by Hades, a brother of Zeus, and was also known as Hades (originally called 'the place of Hades'). Other well-known realms are Tartarus ,
3287-566: A lunar aspect of Hecate. Fowler also noted that the pairing (i. e. Helios and Perse) made sense given Hecate's association with the Moon. Mooney however notes that when it comes to the nymph Perse herself, there's no evidence of her actually being a moon goddess on her own right. Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity. Shrines to Hecate were often placed at doorways to homes, temples, and cities with
3460-572: A major role in forming the relationship between humans and the divine. It has been suggested that the Chthonic deities, distinguished from Olympic deities by typically being offered the holocaust mode of sacrifice, where the offering is wholly burnt, may be remnants of the native Pre-Hellenic religion, and that many of the Olympian deities may come from the Proto-Greeks who overran the southern part of
3633-423: A male-dominated Indo-European hierarchy, has been proposed for Greece as for Minoan Crete and other regions, but has not been in favor with specialists for some decades, though the question remains too poorly evidenced for a clear conclusion; at the least the evidence from Minoan art shows more goddesses than gods. The Twelve Olympians , with Zeus as sky father , certainly have a strong Indo-European flavor; by
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#17328583528803806-679: A map to the afterlife , a communal worship, and a band of spiritual fellowship. Some of these mysteries, like the mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace , were ancient and local. Others were spread from place to place, like the mysteries of Dionysus . During the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire , exotic mystery religions became widespread, not only in Greece, but all across the empire. Some of these were new creations, such as Mithras , while others had been practiced for hundreds of years before, like
3979-465: A number of her cult titles: Apotropaia (that turns away/protects); Enodia (on the way); Propulaia / Propylaia (before the gate); Triodia / Trioditis (who frequents crossroads ); Klêidouchos (holding the keys), etc. As a goddess expected to avert harmful or destructive spirits from the house or city over which she stood guard and to protect the individual as she or he passed through dangerous liminal places, Hecate would naturally become known as
4152-403: A perceived whim of the deity. In some places visitors were asked to show they spoke Greek; elsewhere Dorians were not allowed entry. Some temples could only be viewed from the threshold. Some temples are said never to be opened at all. But generally Greeks, including slaves, had a reasonable expectation of being allowed into the cella . Once inside the cella it was possible to pray to or before
4325-466: A place of torment for the damned, and Elysium , a place of pleasures for the virtuous. In the early Mycenaean religion all the dead went to Hades, but the rise of mystery cults in the Archaic age led to the development of places such as Tartarus and Elysium. A few Greeks, like Achilles , Alcmene , Amphiaraus , Ganymede , Ino , Melicertes , Menelaus , Peleus , and a great number of those who fought in
4498-597: A single transcendent deity . The worship of these deities, and several others, was found across the Greek world, though they often have different epithets that distinguished aspects of the deity, and often reflect the absorption of other local deities into the pan-Hellenic scheme. The religious practices of the Greeks extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in Asia Minor , to Magna Graecia ( Sicily and southern Italy), and to scattered Greek colonies in
4671-458: A temple was ever built there. The tenemos might include many subsidiary buildings, sacred groves or springs, animals dedicated to the deity, and sometimes people who had taken sanctuary from the law, which some temples offered, for example to runaway slaves. The earliest Greek sanctuaries probably lacked temple buildings, though our knowledge of these is limited, and the subject is controversial. A typical early sanctuary seems to have consisted of
4844-468: A tenemos, often around a sacred grove, cave, rock ( baetyl ) or spring, and perhaps defined only by marker stones at intervals, with an altar for offerings. Many rural sanctuaries probably stayed in this style, but the more popular were gradually able to afford a building to house a cult image, especially in cities. This process was certainly under way by the 9th century, and probably started earlier. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since
5017-436: A term for lesser attendants. As priestesses, they gained social recognition and access to more luxuries than other Greek women who worked or stayed in the home. They were mostly from local elite families; some roles required virgins, who typically only served for a year or so before marriage, while other roles went to married women. Women who voluntarily chose to become priestesses received an increase in social and legal status to
5190-441: A time when it had recently become illegal for Americans to own them, and when most other countries had withdrawn gold from active circulation as well. Early printings of this dictionary contained the erroneous ghost word dord . Because of its style and word coverage, Webster's Second is still a popular dictionary. For example, in the case of Miller Brewing Co. v. G. Heileman Brewing Co., Inc ., 561 F.2d 75 (7th Cir. 1977) –
5363-481: A trademark dispute in which the terms "lite" and "light" were held to be generic for light beer and therefore available for use by anyone – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, after considering a definition from Webster's Third New International Dictionary , wrote that "[T]he comparable definition in the previous, and for many the classic, edition of the same dictionary is as follows:..." After about
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5536-535: A type of museum. Some sanctuaries offered oracles , people who were believed to receive divine inspiration in answering questions put by pilgrims. The most famous of these by far was the female priestess called the Pythia at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi , and that of Zeus at Dodona , but there were many others. Some dealt only with medical, agricultural or other specialized matters, and not all represented gods, like that of
5709-563: A typical human. They interacted with humans, sometimes even spawning children—called demigods —with them. At times, certain gods would be opposed to others, and they would try to outdo each other. In the Iliad , Aphrodite , Ares , and Apollo support the Trojan side in the Trojan War, while Hera , Athena , and Poseidon support the Greeks (see theomachy ). Some gods were specifically associated with
5882-499: A votive sculpture from Attica of the 3rd century BCE, include additional dancing figures identified as the Charites circling the triple Hecate and her central column. It is possible that the representation of a triple Hecate surrounding a central pillar was originally derived from poles set up at three-way crossroads with masks hung on them, facing in each road direction. In the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote: "Look at Hecate, standing guard at
6055-462: Is a list of years of publication of the Collegiate dictionaries. Since the late 19th century, dictionaries bearing the name Webster's have been published by companies other than Merriam-Webster . Some of these were unauthorized reprints of Noah Webster's work; some were revisions of his work. One such revision was Webster's Imperial Dictionary , based on John Ogilvie 's The Imperial Dictionary of
6228-522: Is also associated with Hecate. Antoninus Liberalis used a myth to explain this association: At Thebes Proetus had a daughter Galinthias . This maiden was playmate and companion of Alcmene , daughter of Electryon . As the birth throes for Herakles were pressing on Alcmene, the Moirai (fates) and Eileithyia (birth-goddess), as a favour to Hera, kept Alcmene in continuous birth pangs. They remained seated, each keeping their arms crossed. Galinthias, fearing that
6401-546: Is also the name of one of the Oceanid nymphs , Helios’ wife and Circe's mother in other versions. In one version of Hecate's parentage, she is the daughter of Perses not the son of Crius but the son of Helios, whose mother is the Oceanid Perse. Karl Kerenyi noted the similarity between the names, perhaps denoting a chthonic connection among the two and the goddess Persephone; it is possible that this epithet gives evidence of
6574-420: Is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition." The Romans often knew her by the epithet of Trivia , an epithet she shares with Diana , each in their roles as protector of travel and of the crossroads (trivia, "three ways"). Hecate was closely identified with Diana and Artemis in
6747-464: Is not linked to Merriam-Webster Online . It is a multilingual online dictionary created in 1999 by Philip M. Parker . This site compiles different online dictionaries and encyclopedia including the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), Wiktionary and Misplaced Pages. Noah Webster's main competitor was Joseph Emerson Worcester , whose 1830 Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of
6920-416: Is prefixed an introductory dissertation on the origin, history and connection of the languages of western Asia and Europe, with an explanation of the principles on which languages are formed. B. L. Hamlen of New Haven, Connecticut , prepared the 1841 printing of the second edition. When Webster died, in 1843, his heirs sold unbound sheets of his 1841 revision American Dictionary of the English Language to
7093-515: Is served, in times of danger or before some important endeavor to gain the gods' favor. For example, in the Odyssey Eumaeus sacrifices a pig with prayer for his unrecognizable master Odysseus. But in the Iliad , which partly reflects very early Greek civilization, not every banquet of the princes begins with a sacrifice. These sacrificial practices share much with recorded forms of sacrificial rituals known from later. Furthermore, throughout
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7266-426: Is the third and lowest aspect of Hecate, the goddess we witches revere", and describes her as a "rotting goddess" with a "pallid decaying body", who has to "wear a mask when [she] visit[s] the gods in heaven." Like Hecate, "the dog is a creature of the threshold, the guardian of doors and portals, and so it is appropriately associated with the frontier between life and death, and with demons and ghosts which move across
7439-425: Is unlikely that a print version will ever be produced, because demand is declining and its increased size would make it unwieldy and expensive. Merriam-Webster introduced its Collegiate Dictionary in 1898 and the series is now in its eleventh edition. Following the publication of Webster's International in 1890, two Collegiate editions were issued as abridgments of each of their Unabridged editions. With
7612-555: The American College Dictionary and (non-Merriam) Webster's New World Dictionary , entered the market alongside the Collegiate . Among larger dictionaries during this period was (non-Merriam) Webster's Universal Dictionary (also published as Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary ) which traced its roots to Noah Webster and called itself "unabridged", but had less than half the vocabulary and paled in scholarship against
7785-523: The oikos (household), alongside Zeus , Hestia , Hermes , and Apollo . In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE) she was also regarded with (some) rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Savior ( Soteira ), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul ( Anima Mundi ). Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she
7958-507: The Balkan Peninsula in the late third millennium BCE. Various religious festivals were held in ancient Greece. Many were specific only to a particular deity or city-state. For example, the festival of Lykaia was celebrated in Arcadia in Greece, which was dedicated to the pastoral god Pan . Like the other Panhellenic Games , the ancient Olympic Games were a religious festival, held at
8131-468: The Chaldean Oracles , coinage, and reliefs from Asia Minor. In artwork, she is often portrayed in three statues standing back to back, each with its own special attributes (torch, keys, daggers, snakes, dogs). The 2nd-century travel writer Pausanias stated that Hecate was first depicted in triplicate by the sculptor Alcamenes in the Greek Classical period of the late 5th century BCE, whose sculpture
8304-546: The Compendious (1806), and American (1828) dictionaries and brings into its discourse a range of concerns including the politics of American English, the question of national identity and culture in the early moments of American independence, and the poetics of citation and of definition. Webster's dictionaries were a redefinition of Americanism within the context of an emergent and unstable American socio-political and cultural identity. Webster's identification of his project as
8477-631: The Epic Cycle and supposedly ending up in Rome, was one of these. The sacred boulder or baetyl is another very primitive type, found around the Mediterranean and Ancient Near East . Many of the Greek statues well known from Roman marble copies were originally temple cult images, which in some cases, such as the Apollo Barberini , can be credibly identified. A very few actual originals survive, for example,
8650-571: The Gerarai or the venerable ones. There were segregated religious festivals in Ancient Greece; the Thesmophoria , Plerosia, Kalamaia, Adonia , and Skira were festivals that were only for women. The Thesmophoria festival and many others represented agricultural fertility, which was considered to be closely connected to women. It gave women a religious identity and purpose in Greek religion, in which
8823-890: The Homeric hymns (regarded as later productions today), Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days , and Pindar 's Odes were regarded as authoritative and perhaps inspired; they usually begin with an invocation to the Muses for inspiration. Plato even wanted to exclude the myths from his ideal state described in the Republic because of their low moral tone. While some traditions, such as Mystery cults, upheld certain texts as canonic within their praxis, such texts were respected but not necessarily accepted as canonic outside their circle. In this field, of particular importance are certain texts referring to Orphic cults : multiple copies, ranging from between 450 BCE and 250 CE, have been found in various parts of
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#17328583528808996-480: The Merriam editions. After the commercial success of Webster's Third New International in the 1960s, Random House responded by adapting its college dictionary by adding more illustrations and large numbers of proper names, increasing its print size and page thickness, and giving it a heavy cover. In 1966, it was published as a new "unabridged" dictionary. It was expanded in 1987, but it still covered no more than half
9169-594: The Mycenaean civilization . Both the literary settings of some important myths and many important sanctuaries relate to locations that were important Helladic centers that had become otherwise unimportant by Greek times. The Mycenaeans perhaps treated Poseidon, to them a god of earthquakes as well as the sea, as their chief deity, and forms of his name along with several other Olympians are recognizable in records in Linear B , while Apollo and Aphrodite are absent. Only about half of
9342-588: The Oxford English Dictionary (1879–1928) says Webster's unabridged edition of 1864 "acquired an international fame. It was held to be superior to every other dictionary and taken as the leading authority on the meaning of words, not only in America and England, but also throughout the Far East." Porter also edited the succeeding edition, Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language (1890), which
9515-535: The Universal , for example, was minimally revised and remained largely out of date. So many dictionaries of varied size and quality have been called Webster's that the name no longer has any specific brand meaning. Despite this, many people still recognize and trust the name. Thus, Webster's continues as a powerful and lucrative marketing tool. In recent years, even established dictionaries with no direct link to Noah Webster whatsoever have adopted his name, adding to
9688-418: The hecatomb (meaning 100 bulls) might in practice only involve a dozen or so, at large festivals the number of cattle sacrificed could run into the hundreds, and the numbers feasting on them well into the thousands. The evidence of the existence of such practices is clear in some ancient Greek literature, especially Homer 's epics. Throughout the poems, the use of the ritual is apparent at banquets where meat
9861-412: The sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them, at altars within the wider precinct of the sanctuary, which might be large. As the centuries passed both the inside of popular temples and the area surrounding them accumulated statues and small shrines or other buildings as gifts, and military trophies, paintings and items in precious metals, effectively turning them into
10034-505: The year in Athens included some 140 days that were religious festivals of some sort, though they varied greatly in importance. The main Greek temple building sat within a larger precinct or temenos , usually surrounded by a peribolos fence or wall; the whole is usually called a "sanctuary". The Acropolis of Athens is the most famous example, though this was apparently walled as a citadel before
10207-405: The "first fruits" were harvested. The libation , a ritual pouring of fluid, was part of everyday life, and libations with a prayer were often made at home whenever wine was drunk, with just a part of the cup's contents, the rest being drunk. More formal ones might be made onto altars at temples, and other fluids such as olive oil and honey might be used. Although the grand form of sacrifice called
10380-456: The 5th century BCE, traced many Greek religious practices to Egypt . Robert G. Boling argues that Greek and Ugaritic / Canaanite mythology share many parallel relationships and that historical trends in Canaanite religion can help date works such as Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey . The Great Goddess hypothesis , that a Stone Age religion dominated by a female Great Goddess was displaced by
10553-475: The Artemis worshipped at Sparta , the virgin huntress, was a very different deity from the Artemis who was a many-breasted fertility goddess at Ephesus . Though worship of the major deities spread from one locality to another, and though most larger cities had temples to several major gods, the identification of different gods with different places remained strong to the end. Ancient sources for Greek religion tell
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#173285835288010726-480: The Basis of Webster's English Dictionary . Editor John Ogilve used Webster's 1841 edition as a base, adding many new, specialized, and British words, increasing the vocabulary from Webster ' s 70,000 to more than 100,000. In response to Joseph Worcester's groundbreaking dictionary of 1860, A Dictionary of the English Language , the G. & C. Merriam Company created a significantly revised edition, A Dictionary of
10899-551: The Egyptian mysteries of Osiris . Mainstream Greek religion appears to have developed out of Proto-Indo-European religion and although very little is known about the earliest periods there are suggestive hints that some local elements go back even further than the Bronze Age or Helladic period to the farmers of Neolithic Greece . There was also clearly cultural evolution from the Late Helladic Mycenaean religion of
11072-504: The English Language , itself an expansion of Noah Webster's American Dictionary . Following legal action by Merriam, successive US courts ruled by 1908 that Webster's entered the public domain when the Unabridged did, in 1889. In 1917, a US court ruled that Webster's entered the public domain in 1834 when Noah Webster's 1806 dictionary's copyright lapsed. Thus, Webster's became a genericized trademark and others were free to use
11245-650: The English Language , published in 1883 by the Century Company, was more comprehensive than the Unabridged . The Century Dictionary , an expansion of the Imperial first published from 1889 to 1891, covered a larger vocabulary until the publication of Webster's Second in 1934, after the Century had ceased publication. In 1894 came Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary , an attractive one volume counterpart to Webster's International . The expanded New Standard of 1913
11418-432: The English Language brought accusations of plagiarism from Webster. The rivalry was carried on by Merriam after Webster's death, in what is often referred to as the "Dictionary Wars". After Worcester's death in 1865, revision of his Dictionary of the English Language was soon discontinued, and it eventually went out of print. The American edition of Charles Annandale's four volume revision of The Imperial Dictionary of
11591-652: The English Language in 1829, with the same number of words and Webster's full definitions, but with truncated literary references and expanded etymology. Although it was more successful financially than the original 1828 edition and was reprinted many times, Noah Webster was critical of it. Worcester and Goodrich's abridgment of Noah Webster's dictionary was published in 1841 by White and Sheffield, printed by E. Sanderson in Elizabethtown, N.J. and again in 1844 by publishers Harper and Brothers of New York City, in 1844, with added words as an appendix. Upon Webster's death in 1843,
11764-511: The English Language . It was edited by Yale University professor Noah Porter and published in 1864, containing 114,000 entries. It was sometimes referred to as the Webster–Mahn edition, because it featured revisions by C. A. F. Mahn , who replaced unsupportable etymologies which were based on Webster's attempt to conform to Biblical interpretations of the history of language. It was the first edition to largely overhaul Noah Webster's work, and
11937-483: The English language. The eleventh edition (published in 2003) includes more than 225,000 definitions, and more than 165,000 entries. A CD-ROM of the text is sometimes included. This dictionary is preferred as a source "for general matters of spelling" by The Chicago Manual of Style , which is followed by many book publishers and magazines in the United States. The Chicago Manual states that it "normally opts for"
12110-453: The Geometric style (900–750 BCE), but are very rarely mentioned in literature; they were relatively late introductions to Greece, and it has been suggested that Greek preferences in this matter were established earlier. The Greeks liked to believe that the animal was glad to be sacrificed, and interpreted various behaviors as showing this. Divination by examining parts of the sacrificed animal
12283-533: The Greek world. Even the words of the oracles never became a sacred text. Other texts were specially composed for religious events, and some have survived within the lyric tradition; although they had a cult function, they were bound to performance and never developed into a common, standard prayer form comparable to the Christian Pater Noster . An exception to this rule were the already named Orphic and Mystery rituals, which, in this, set themselves aside from
12456-485: The Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs." Most ancient Greeks recognized the twelve major Olympian gods and goddesses — Zeus , Hera , Poseidon , Demeter , Athena , Ares , Aphrodite , Apollo , Artemis , Hephaestus , Hermes , and either Hestia or Dionysus —although philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to assume
12629-586: The Mycenaean pantheon seems to survive the Greek Dark Ages . The archaeological evidence for continuity in religion is far clearer for Crete and Cyprus than the Greek mainland. Greek religious concepts may also have absorbed the beliefs and practices of earlier, nearby cultures, such as Minoan religion , and other influences came from the Near East, especially via Cyprus and Phoenicia . Herodotus , writing in
12802-595: The Roman era. Potential Greek source words have been suggested for the goddess's name. The word ἑκών, meaning "willing" (thus, "she who works her will" or similar), may be related to the name Hecate. However, no sources suggested list will or willingness as a major attribute of Hecate, which calls this assertion into question. Another Greek word suggested as the origin of the name Hecate is Ἑκατός Hekatos , an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as "the far-reaching one" or "the far-darter". This has been suggested in comparison with
12975-500: The Roman period connecting Hecate to the Moon exists. Nevertheless, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter shows Helios and Hecate informing Demeter of Persephone 's abduction, a common theme found in many parts of the world where the Sun and the Moon are questioned concerning events that happen on earth based on their ability to witness everything and implies Hecate's capacity as a moon goddess in
13148-485: The Thesmophorion, where women could perform their rites and worship. Those who were not satisfied by the public cult of the gods could turn to various mystery religions that operated as cults into which members had to be initiated in order to learn their secrets. Here, they could find religious consolations that traditional religion could not provide: a chance at mystical awakening, a systematic religious doctrine,
13321-762: The Titans, who then gave birth to the first Olympians. The mythology largely survived and was expanded to form the later Roman mythology . The Greeks and Romans were literate societies, and much mythology, although initially shared orally, was written down in the forms of epic poetry (such as the Iliad , the Odyssey and the Argonautica ) and plays (such as Euripides ' The Bacchae and Aristophanes ' The Frogs ). The mythology became popular in Christian post- Renaissance Europe, where it
13494-548: The Trojan and Theban wars, were considered to have been physically immortalized and brought to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean, or beneath the ground. Such beliefs are found in the most ancient Greek sources, such as Homer and Hesiod . This belief remained strong even into the Christian era. For most people at the moment of death there was, however, no hope of anything but continued existence as
13667-506: The Webster's name in his honor. " Webster's " has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for US English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles. Merriam-Webster is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the public domain . Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books which dominated the American market at
13840-565: The Western Mediterranean, such as Massalia (Marseille). Early Italian religions such as the Etruscan religion were influenced by Greek religion and subsequently influenced much of the ancient Roman religion . "There was no centralization of authority over Greek religious practices and beliefs; change was regulated only at the civic level. Thus, the phenomenon we are studying is not in fact an organized "religion". Instead we might think of
14013-449: The actual vocabulary of Webster's Third . The American Heritage Publishing Co., highly critical of Webster's Third , failed in an attempt to buy out Merriam-Webster and determined to create its own dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . In 1969, it issued a college-sized dictionary. Now in its fifth edition, it is only slightly greater in vocabulary than the Collegiate , but it appears much larger and has
14186-552: The age of puberty . Some priestly functions, like the care for a particular local festival, could be given by tradition to a certain family. To a large extent, in the absence of "scriptural" sacred texts, religious practices derived their authority from tradition, and "every omission or deviation arouses deep anxiety and calls forth sanctions". Greek ceremonies and rituals were mainly performed at altars , which were never inside temples, but often just outside, or standing by themselves somewhere. These were typically devoted to one or
14359-556: The appeal of many pictures and other features, such as a usage panel of language professionals which is polled for the acceptability of certain word usage, and a discussion for some entries of subtle differences among words with similar meaning. Other medium-sized dictionaries have since entered the market, including the New Oxford American and the Encarta Webster's , while Merriam-Webster has not attempted to compete by issuing
14532-521: The attributes of the goddess Artemis , strongly associated with Apollo and frequently equated with Hecate in the classical world. Supporters of this etymology suggest that Hecate was originally considered an aspect of Artemis prior to the latter's adoption into the Olympian pantheon. Artemis would have, at that point, become more strongly associated with purity and maidenhood, on the one hand, while her originally darker attributes like her association with magic,
14705-399: The belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits. Home shrines often took the form of a small Hekataion , a shrine centred on a wood or stone carving of a triple Hecate facing in three directions on three sides of a central pillar. Larger Hekataions, often enclosed within small walled areas, were sometimes placed at public crossroads near important sites – for example, there
14878-408: The beliefs and practices of Greeks in relation to the gods as a group of closely related "religious dialects" that resembled each other far more than they did those of non-Greeks." Ancient Greek theology was polytheistic , based on the assumption that there were many gods and goddesses, as well as a range of lesser supernatural beings of various types. There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus ,
15051-435: The blood-eating goddess Hecate. It seems a symbolic summation of all the negative characteristics of the creatures of the deep. At Athens, it is said there stood a statue of Hecate Triglathena , to whom the red mullet was offered in sacrifice. After mentioning that this fish was sacred to Hecate, Alan Davidson writes, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Martial, Pliny, Seneca, and Suetonius have left abundant and interesting testimony to
15224-441: The bronze Piraeus Athena (2.35 m (7.7 ft) high, including a helmet). The image stood on a base, from the 5th century often carved with reliefs. It used to be thought that access to the cella of a Greek temple was limited to the priests, and it was entered only rarely by other visitors, except perhaps during important festivals or other special occasions. In recent decades this picture has changed, and scholars now stress
15397-407: The complete text, with thousands of additional new words and definitions from the "addenda", was published by Merriam-Webster in 2000, and is often packaged with the print edition. The third edition was published in 2000 on Merriam-Webster's website as a subscription service. Planning for a Fourth edition of the Unabridged began with a 1988 memo from Merriam-Webster president William Llewellyn but
15570-401: The concealed knife led the way. After various rituals, the animal was slaughtered over the altar. As it fell, all the women present "[cried] out in high, shrill tones". Its blood was collected and poured over the altar. It was butchered on the spot and various internal organs, bones and other inedible parts burnt as the deity's portion of the offering, while the meat was removed to be prepared for
15743-513: The confusion. Random House dictionaries are now called Random House Webster's , and Microsoft 's Encarta World English Dictionary is now Encarta Webster's Dictionary . The dictionary now called Webster's New Universal no longer even uses the text of the original Webster's New Universal dictionary, but rather is a newly commissioned version of the Random House Dictionary . The Webster's Online Dictionary: The Rosetta Edition
15916-557: The crossroads, one face looking in each direction." Apart from traditional hekataia , Hecate's triplicity is depicted in the vast frieze of the great Pergamon Altar , now in Berlin, wherein she is shown with three bodies, taking part in the battle with the Titans. In the Argolid , near the shrine of the Dioscuri , Pausanias saw the temple of Hecate opposite the sanctuary of Eileithyia ; He reported
16089-499: The cult image, and sometimes to touch it; Cicero saw a bronze image of Heracles with its foot largely worn away by the touch of devotees. Famous cult images such as the Statue of Zeus at Olympia functioned as significant visitor attractions. In addition to the role that women performed in sacrifices, the only public roles that Greek women could perform were priestesses ; either hiereiai , meaning "sacred women", or amphipolis ,
16262-495: The dog was sacred to Eileithyia , Genetyllis, and other birth goddesses. Images of her attended by a dog are also found when she is depicted alongside the god Hermes and the goddess Cybele in reliefs. Although in later times Hecate's dog came to be thought of as a manifestation of restless souls or daemons who accompanied her, its docile appearance and its accompaniment of a Hecate who looks completely friendly in many pieces of ancient art suggests that its original signification
16435-595: The dying fish change. In her three-headed representations, discussed above, Hecate often has one or more animal heads, including cow, dog, boar, serpent, and horse. Lions are associated with Hecate in early artwork from Asia Minor, as well as later coins and literature, including the Chaldean Oracles . The frog , which was also the symbol of the similarly named Egyptian goddess Heqet , has also become sacred to Hecate in modern pagan literature, possibly due in part to its ability to cross between two elements. Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe cited that Hecate
16608-411: The earth with a retinue of ghosts and was depicted on coinage wearing a leafy crown and holding torches, iconography strongly associated with Hecate. By the 1st century CE, Hecate's chthonic and nocturnal character had led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery. In Lucan 's Pharsalia , the witch Erichtho invokes Hecate as "Persephone, who
16781-561: The final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan - Jacobean period. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name. Evidence suggests that Hecate originated among the Carians of Anatolia , the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus , the father of Mausolus , are attested, and where Hecate remained
16954-466: The firm of J. S. & C. Adams of Amherst, Massachusetts . This firm bound and published a small number of copies in 1844 – the same edition that Emily Dickinson used as a tool for her poetic composition. However, a $ 15 (adjusted for inflation: $ 512.78) price tag on the book made it too expensive to sell easily, so the Amherst firm decided to sell out. Merriam acquired rights from Adams, as well as signing
17127-467: The first spelling listed. In addition to its Collegiate editions G. & C. Merriam Co. also produced abridged editions for students ( Primary School, Elementary School, Secondary School, High School, Common School, Academic ) as well as for general public ( Condensed, Practical, Handy ). The first edition of the abridged Primary School dictionary was prepared by Noah Webster in 1833 and later revised by William G. Webster and William A. Wheeler. Below
17300-403: The first to be known as the Unabridged . Later printings included additional material: a "Supplement Of Additional Words And Definitions" containing more than 4,600 new words and definitions in 1879, A Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary containing more than 9,700 names of noteworthy persons in 1879, and a Pronouncing Gazetteer in 1884. The 1883 printing of the book contained 1,928 pages and
17473-440: The frontier. The yawning gates of Hades were guarded by the monstrous watchdog Cerberus , whose function was to prevent the living from entering the underworld, and the dead from leaving it." Hecate was closely associated with plant lore and the concoction of medicines and poisons . In particular she was thought to give instruction in these closely related arts. Apollonius of Rhodes , in the Argonautica , mentions that Medea
17646-735: The gates of the city. Hecate's importance to Byzantium was above all as a deity of protection. When Philip of Macedon was about to attack the city, according to the legend she alerted the townspeople with her ever present torches, and with her pack of dogs, which served as her constant companions." This suggests that Hecate's close association with dogs derived in part from the use of watchdogs, who, particularly at night, raised an alarm when intruders approached. Watchdogs were used extensively by Greeks and Romans. Cult images and altars of Hecate in her triplicate or trimorphic form were placed at three-way crossroads (though they also appeared before private homes and in front of city gates). In what appears to be
17819-474: The goddess are singular. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens . An inscription on the statue is a dedication to Hecate, in writing of the style of the 6th century, but it otherwise lacks any other symbols typically associated with the goddess. She is seated on a throne, with a chaplet around her head; the depiction is otherwise relatively generic. Farnell states: "The evidence of
17992-401: The goddess be gracious to me: Fables and their telling I leave to others. Athenaeus of Naucratis , drawing on the etymological speculation of Apollodorus of Athens , notes that the red mullet is sacred to Hecate, "on account of the resemblance of their names; for that the goddess is trimorphos , of a triple form". The Greek word for mullet was trigle and later trigla . He goes on to quote
18165-498: The goddess with a single body, but three faces. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus , and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity , Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent , and one horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar. The east frieze of a Hellenistic temple of hers at Lagina shows her helping protect
18338-503: The gods were certainly not all-good or even all-powerful . They had to obey fate , known to Greek mythology as the Moirai , which overrode any of their divine powers or wills. For instance, in mythology, it was Odysseus ' fate to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War , and the gods could only lengthen his journey and make it harder for him, not stop him. The gods had human vices and many behaved with arguably less morality than
18511-481: The help of his son, William G. Webster. Its title page does not claim the status of second edition, merely noting that this new edition was the "first edition in octavo" in contrast to the quarto format of the first edition of 1828. Again in two volumes, the title page proclaimed that the Dictionary contained "the whole vocabulary of the quarto, with corrections, improvements and several thousand additional words: to which
18684-409: The hero Trophonius at Livadeia . The temple was the house of the deity it was dedicated to, who in some sense resided in the cult image in the cella or main room inside, normally facing the only door. The cult image normally took the form of a statue of the deity, typically roughly life-size, but in some cases many times life-size. In early days these were in wood, marble or terracotta , or in
18857-521: The holder of the keys to Tartaros . Like Hermes , Hecate takes on the role of guardian not just of roads, but of all journeys, including the journey to the afterlife. In art and myth, she is shown, along with Hermes, guiding Persephone back from the underworld with her torches. By the 5th century BCE, Hecate had come to be strongly associated with ghosts , possibly due to conflation with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (meaning "traveller"), who travelled
19030-483: The hymn. Another work connecting Hecate to Helios possibly as a moon goddess is Sophocles 's lost play The Root Cutters , where Helios is described as Hecate's spear: O Sun our lord and sacred fire, the spear of Hecate of the roads, which she carries as she attends her mistress in the sky This speech from the Root Cutters may or may not be an intentional association of Hecate with the Moon. In Seneca 's Medea ,
19203-407: The image to be the work of Scopas , stating further, "This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon." While Greek anthropomorphic conventions of art generally represented Hecate's triple form as three separate bodies, the iconography of the triple Hecate eventually evolved into representations of
19376-701: The king of the gods, having a level of control over all the others, although he was not almighty. Some deities had dominion over certain aspects of nature . For instance, Zeus was the sky-god, sending thunder and lightning, Poseidon ruled over the sea and earthquakes , Hades projected his remarkable power throughout the realms of death and the Underworld , and Helios controlled the sun. Other deities ruled over abstract concepts; for instance Aphrodite controlled love. All significant deities were visualized as "human" in form, although often able to transform themselves into animals or natural phenomena. While being immortal,
19549-499: The liminal spaces between worlds, Hecate is also recognized as a chthonic (underworld) goddess. As the holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms, she can unlock the gates of death, as described in a 3rd-century BCE poem by Theocritus. In the 1st century CE, Virgil described the entrance to hell as "Hecate's Grove", though he says that Hecate is equally "powerful in Heaven and Hell." The Greek Magical Papyri describe Hecate as
19722-482: The lunar goddesses Diana (the huntress), Luna (the Moon) and Hecate (the underworld) became a ubiquitous feature in depictions of sacred groves, where Hecate/Trivia marked intersections and crossroads along with other liminal deities. The Romans celebrated enthusiastically the multiple identities of Diana as Hecate, Luna and Trivia. From her father Perses, Hecate is often called "Perseis" (meaning "daughter of Perses") which
19895-472: The marketplace due to its much larger size. The New International editions continued to offer words and features not covered by the OED , and vice versa. In the 1970s, the OED began publishing Supplements to its dictionary and in 1989 integrated the new words in the supplements with the older definitions and etymologies in its Second Edition . Between the 1930s and the 1950s, several college dictionaries, notably
20068-458: The monuments as to the character and significance of Hecate is almost as full as that of to express her manifold and mystic nature." A 6th century fragment of pottery from Boetia depicts a goddess which may be Hecate in a maternal or fertility mode. Crowned with leafy branches as in later descriptions, she is depicted offering a "maternal blessing" to two maidens who embrace her. The figure is flanked by lions, an animal associated with Hecate both in
20241-409: The most common. He spent the next two decades working to expand his dictionary. In 1828, when Noah Webster was 70, his American Dictionary of the English Language was published by S. Converse in two quarto volumes containing 70,000 entries, as against the 58,000 of any previous dictionary. There were 2,500 copies printed, at $ 20 (adjusted for 2023 inflation: $ 647.73) for the two volumes. At first
20414-691: The name on their own works. Since then, use of the name Webster has been rampant. Merriam-Webster goes to great pains to remind dictionary buyers that it alone is the heir to Noah Webster. Although Merriam-Webster revisers find solid ground in Noah Webster's concept of the English language as an ever-changing tapestry, the issue is more complicated than that. Throughout the 20th century, some non-Merriam editions, such as Webster's New Universal , were closer to Webster's work than contemporary Merriam-Webster editions. Further revisions by Merriam-Webster came to have little in common with their original source, while
20587-478: The near-unanimous denunciation of that word by English teachers. Since the 1961 publication of the Third , Merriam-Webster has reprinted the main text of the dictionary with only minor corrections. To add new words, they created an Addenda Section in 1966, included in the front matter, which was expanded in 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1993, and 2002. However, the rate of additions was much slower than it had been throughout
20760-413: The necks of black bulls which they slaughtered in her honor and yew boughs were burned on funeral pyres. The yew was associated with the alphabet and the scientific name for yew today, taxus , was probably derived from the Greek word for yew, toxos , which is hauntingly similar to toxon , their word for bow and toxicon , their word for poison. It is presumed that the latter were named after
20933-451: The newborn Zeus from his father Cronus ; this frieze is the only evidence of Hecate's involvement in the myth of his birth. Dogs were closely associated with Hecate in the Classical world. "In art and in literature Hecate is constantly represented as dog-shaped or as accompanied by a dog. Her approach was heralded by the howling of a dog. The dog was Hecate's regular sacrificial animal, and
21106-509: The ninth edition ( Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (WNNCD), published in 1983), the Collegiate adopted changes which distinguish it as a separate entity rather than merely an abridgment of the "Third New International." Some proper names were returned to the word list, including names of Knights of the Round Table . The most notable change was the inclusion of the date of the first known citation of each word, to document its entry into
21279-451: The number of illustrations. A new format feature, the divided page , was designed to save space by including a section of words below the line at the bottom of each page: six columns of very fine print, devoted to such items as rarely used, obsolete, and foreign words, abbreviations, and variant spellings. Notable improvement was made in the treatment and number of discriminated synonyms , comparisons of subtle shades of meaning. Also added
21452-503: The oldest, and often obsolete, usages listed first. For example, the first definition of starve includes dying of exposure to the elements as well as from lack of food. The numerous picture plates added to the book's appeal and usefulness, particularly when pertaining to things found in nature. Conversely, the plate showing the coins of the world's important nations quickly proved to be ephemeral. Numerous gold coins from various important countries were included, including American eagles, at
21625-566: The one-eyed giant Cyclopes , the sea beast Scylla , whirlpool Charybdis , Gorgons, and the half-man, half-bull Minotaur . There was no set Greek cosmogony , or creation myth. Different religious groups believed that the world had been created in different ways. One Greek creation myth was told in Hesiod's Theogony . It stated that at first there was only a primordial deity called Chaos , after which came various other primordial gods, such as Gaia, Tartarus and Eros, who then gave birth to more gods,
21798-449: The pains of her labour would drive Alcmene mad, ran to the Moirai and Eileithyia and announced that by desire of Zeus a boy had been born to Alcmene and that their prerogatives had been abolished. At all this, consternation of course overcame the Moirai and they immediately let go their arms. Alcmene’s pangs ceased at once and Herakles was born. The Moirai were aggrieved at this and took away
21971-511: The participants to eat; the leading figures tasted it on the spot. The temple usually kept the skin to sell to tanners. That humans got more use from the sacrifice than the deity did not escape the Greeks, and was often the subject of humor in Greek comedy . The animals used were, in order of preference, bulls or oxen, cows, sheep (the most common sacrifice), goats, pigs (with piglets being the cheapest mammal), and poultry (but rarely other birds or fish). Horses and asses are seen on some vases in
22144-469: The poem, special banquets are held whenever gods indicated their presence by some sign or success in war. Before setting out for Troy, this type of animal sacrifice is offered. Odysseus offers Zeus a sacrificial ram in vain. The occasions of sacrifice in Homer's epic poems may shed some light onto the view of gods as members of society, rather than external entities, indicating social ties. Sacrificial rituals played
22317-494: The previous hundred years. Following the purchase of Merriam-Webster by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in 1964, a three-volume version was issued for many years as a supplement to the encyclopedia. At the end of volume three, this edition included the Britannica World Language Dictionary , 474 pages of translations between English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish. A CD-ROM version of
22490-588: The public, and after death, they received a public burial site. Greek priestesses had to be healthy and of a sound mind, the reasoning being that the ones serving the gods had to be as high-quality as their offerings. This was also true of male Greek priests. It is contested whether there were gendered divisions when it came to serving a particular god or goddess, who was devoted to what god, gods and/or goddesses could have both priests and priestesses to serve them. Gender specifics did come into play when it came to who would perform certain acts of sacrifice or worship. Per
22663-638: The quest for the Golden Fleece and Theseus and the Minotaur . Many species existed in Greek mythology. Chief among these were the gods and humans, though the Titans (who predated the Olympian gods) also frequently appeared in Greek myths. Lesser species included the half-man-half-horse centaurs , the nature-based nymphs (tree nymphs were dryads , sea nymphs were Nereids ) and the half-man, half-goat satyrs . Some creatures in Greek mythology were monstrous, such as
22836-455: The red mullet fever which began to affect wealthy Romans during the last years of the Republic and really gripped them in the early Empire. The main symptoms were a preoccupation with size, the consequent rise to absurd heights of the prices of large specimens, a habit of keeping red mullet in captivity, and the enjoyment of the highly specialized aesthetic experience induced by watching the color of
23009-446: The rest of the Greek religious system. Finally, some texts called ieri logi ( Greek : ιεροί λόγοι ) (sacred texts) by the ancient sources, originated from outside the Greek world, or were supposedly adopted in remote times, representing yet more different traditions within the Greek belief system. The lack of a unified priestly class meant that a unified, canonic form of the religious texts or practices never existed; just as there
23182-427: The ritual scapegoat, the hardship would go with it. Worship in Greece typically consisted of sacrificing domestic animals at the altar with hymn and prayer. The altar was outside any temple building, and might not be associated with a temple at all. The animal, which should be perfect of its kind, was decorated with garlands and the like, and led in procession to the altar; a girl with a basket on her head containing
23355-612: The road. This can be compared to Pausanias' report that in the Ionian city of Colophon in Asia Minor a sacrifice of a black female puppy was made to Hecate as "the wayside goddess", and Plutarch's observation that in Boeotia dogs were killed in purificatory rites. Dogs, with puppies often mentioned, were offered to Hecate at crossroads, which were sacred to the goddess. Ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed
23528-460: The role of women in worshipping goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone reinforced traditional lifestyles. The festivals relating to agricultural fertility were valued by the polis because this is what they traditionally worked for; women-centered festivals that involved private matters were less important. In Athens the festivals honoring Demeter were included in the calendar and promoted by Athens. They constructed temples and shrines like
23701-472: The sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia . Other festivals centered on Greek theatre , of which the Dionysia in Athens was the most important. More typical festivals featured a procession, large sacrifices and a feast to eat the offerings, and many included entertainments and customs such as visiting friends, wearing fancy dress and unusual behavior in the streets, sometimes risky for bystanders in various ways. Altogether
23874-405: The set sold poorly. When he lowered the price to $ 15 (adjusted for 2023 inflation: $ 485.80), its sales improved, and by 1836 that edition was exhausted. Not all copies were bound at the same time; the book also appeared in publisher's boards; other original bindings of a later date are not unknown. In 1841, 82-year-old Noah Webster published a second edition of his lexicographical masterpiece with
24047-433: The significance of the male or female role to a particular god or goddess, a priest would lead the priestess or the reverse. In some Greek cults priestesses served both gods and goddesses; Pythia , or female Oracle of Apollo at Delphi , and that at Didyma were priestesses, but both were overseen by male priests. The festival of Dionosyus was practiced by both and the god was served by women and female priestesses known as
24220-477: The souls of the dead, and the night would have continued to be worshipped separately under her title Hecate. Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, the Ἑκατός theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult. R. S. P. Beekes rejected
24393-724: The specially prestigious form of a chryselephantine statue using ivory plaques for the visible parts of the body and gold for the clothes, around a wooden framework. The most famous Greek cult images were of this type, including the Statue of Zeus at Olympia , and Phidias 's Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon in Athens, both colossal statues, now completely lost. Fragments of two chryselephantine statues from Delphi have been excavated. Bronze cult images were less frequent, at least until Hellenistic times. Early images seem often to have been dressed in real clothes, and at all periods images might wear real jewelry donated by devotees. The acrolith
24566-521: The text. His revisions remained close to Webster's work, but removed what later editors referred to as his "excrescences". In 1850, Blackie and Son in Glasgow published the first general dictionary of English that made heavy use of pictorial illustrations integrated with the text, The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, Adapted to the Present State of Literature, Science, and Art; On
24739-553: The time of the epic works of Homer all are well-established, except for Dionysus , but several of the Homeric Hymns , probably composed slightly later, are dedicated to him. Webster%27s Dictionary Webster's Dictionary is any of the US English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a US lexicographer , as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted
24912-471: The time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language , appeared in 1806. In it, he popularized features which would become a hallmark of American English spelling ( center rather than centre , honor rather than honour , program rather than programme , etc.) and included technical terms from the arts and sciences rather than confining his dictionary to literary words. Webster
25085-404: The titular Medea invokes her patron Hecate whom she addresses as "Moon, orb of the night" and "triple form". Hecate and the moon goddess Selene were frequently identified with each other and a number of Greek and non-Greek deities; the Greek Magical Papyri and other magical texts emphasize a syncretism between Selene-Hecate with Artemis and Persephone among others. In Italy, the triple unity of
25258-471: The tree because of its superiority for both bows and poison. Hecate was seen as a triple deity, identified with the goddesses Luna (Moon) in the sky and Diana (hunting) on the earth, while she represents the Underworld. Hecate's association with Helios in literary sources and especially in cursing magic has been cited as evidence for her lunar nature, although this evidence is pretty late; no artwork before
25431-402: The unsold books and all rights to the copyright and name "Webster" were purchased by brothers George and Charles Merriam, who then hired Webster's son-in-law Chauncey A. Goodrich , a professor at Yale College , to oversee revisions. Goodrich's New and Revised Edition appeared on September 24, 1847, and a Revised and Enlarged edition in 1859, which added a section of illustrations indexed to
25604-442: The use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the 1st century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic. The yew in particular was sacred to Hecate. Greeks held the yew to be sacred to Hecate ... Her attendants draped wreathes of yew around
25777-588: The variety of local access rules. Pausanias was a gentlemanly traveller of the 2nd-century CE who declares that the special intention of his travels around Greece was to see cult images, and usually managed to do so. It was typically necessary to make a sacrifice or gift, and some temples restricted access either to certain days of the year, or by class, race, gender (with either men or women forbidden), or even more tightly. Garlic-eaters were forbidden in one temple, in another women unless they were virgins; restrictions typically arose from local ideas of ritual purity or
25950-425: The womanly parts of Galinthias since, being but a mortal, she had deceived the gods. They turned her into a deceitful weasel (or polecat), making her live in crannies and gave her a grotesque way of mating. She is mounted through the ears and gives birth by bringing forth her young through the throat. Hecate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant of herself. Aelian told
26123-528: The work as radical – too inclusive in its lexicon and even bordering on vulgar. Meanwhile, Webster's old foes, the Jeffersonian Republicans , attacked the man, labeling him mad for such an undertaking. Scholars have long seen Webster's 1844 dictionary to be an important resource for reading poet Emily Dickinson 's life and work; she once commented that the "Lexicon" was her "only companion" for years. One biographer said, "The dictionary
26296-408: Was 8½ in (22 cm) wide by 11½ in (29 cm) tall by 4¼ in (11 cm) thick. The 1888 printing (revision?) is similarly sized, with the last printed page number "1935" which has on its back further content (hence, 1936th page), and closes with "Whole number of pages 2012". This dictionary carries the 1864 Preface by Noah Porter with postscripts of 1879 and 1884. James A.H. Murray, the editor of
26469-660: Was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: "it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather [...] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology". In William Shakespeare 's First Folios , for example, spellings such as center and color are
26642-502: Was a twenty-page chart comparing the Webster's pronunciations with those offered by six other major dictionaries. This edition was reprinted in 1913. Being in the public domain and having been scanned and OCRd , this edition has had substantial influence on Wiktionary. In 1934, the New International Dictionary was revised and expanded for a second edition, which is popularly known as Webster's Second or W2 , although it
26815-461: Was a worthy challenge to the New International , and remained a major competitor for many years. However, Funk & Wagnalls never revised the work, reprinting it virtually unchanged for more than 50 years, while Merriam published two major revisions. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ), which published its complete first edition in 1933, challenged Merriam in scholarship, though not in
26988-464: Was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene . This line of reasoning lies behind the widely accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity who was incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony , the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage or of her relations in the Greek pantheon. A possible theory of
27161-409: Was also named ίππεύτρια ( hippeutria – 'the equestrienne'), since the horse was "the chthonic animal par excellence ". The goddess is described as wearing oak in fragments of Sophocles 's lost play The Root Diggers (or The Root Cutters ), and an ancient commentary on Apollonius's Argonautica (3.1214) describes her as having a head surrounded by serpents, twining through branches of oak. Hecate
27334-604: Was an expansion of the American Dictionary . It contained about 175,000 entries. In 1900, Webster's International was republished with a supplement that added 25,000 entries to it. In 1898, the Collegiate Dictionary also was introduced (see below). The Merriam Company issued a complete revision in 1909, Webster's New International Dictionary , edited by William Torrey Harris and F. Sturges Allen . Vastly expanded, it covered more than 400,000 entries, and double
27507-459: Was another composite form, this time a cost-saving one with a wooden body. A xoanon was a primitive and symbolic wooden image, perhaps comparable to the Hindu lingam ; many of these were retained and revered for their antiquity, even when a new statue was the main cult image. Xoana had the advantage that they were easy to carry in processions at festivals. The Trojan Palladium , famous from the myths of
27680-404: Was associated with borders, city walls, doorways, crossroads and, by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living. She appears to have been particularly associated with being 'between' and hence is frequently characterized as a " liminal " goddess. "Hecate mediated between regimes— Olympian and Titan —but also between mortal and divine spheres." This liminal role is reflected in
27853-605: Was in Hesiod 's Theogony in the 8th century BCE as a goddess of great honour with domains in sky, earth, and sea. She had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly , and an important sanctuary among the Carians of Asia Minor in Lagina. Her oldest known representation was found in Selinunte , in Sicily . Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of
28026-475: Was much less important than in Roman or Etruscan religion , or Near Eastern religions , but was practiced , especially of the liver, and as part of the cult of Apollo . Generally, the Greeks put more faith in observing the behavior of birds . For a smaller and simpler offering, a grain of incense could be thrown on the sacred fire, and outside the cities farmers made simple sacrificial gifts of plant produce as
28199-465: Was no mere reference book to her; she read it as a priest his breviary – over and over, page by page, with utter absorption."; Austin (2005) explores the intersection of lexicographical and poetic practices in American literature, and attempts to map out a "lexical poetics" using Webster's dictionaries. He shows the ways in which American poetry has inherited Webster and drawn upon his lexicography to reinvent it. Austin explicates key definitions from both
28372-412: Was no unified, common sacred text for the Greek belief system, there was no standardization of practices. Instead, religious practices were organized on local levels, with priests normally being magistrates for the city or village, or gaining authority from one of the many sanctuaries. Pausanias notes that the priest of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea was a boy, who held office only until reaching
28545-643: Was not published under that title. It was edited by William Allan Neilson and Thomas A. Knott . It contained 3,350 pages and sold for $ 39.50 (adjusted for inflation: $ 755.77). Some versions added a 400-page supplement called A Reference History of the World , which provided chronologies "from earliest times to the present". The editors claimed more than 600,000 entries, more than any other dictionary at that time, but that number included many proper names and newly added lists of undefined " combination words ". Multiple definitions of words are listed in chronological order, with
28718-459: Was often eaten in solemn sacrament." The sacrifice of dogs to Hecate is attested for Thrace, Samothrace, Colophon, and Athens. A 4th-century BCE marble relief from Crannon in Thessaly was dedicated by a race-horse owner. It shows Hecate, with a hound beside her, placing a wreath on the head of a mare. It has been claimed that her association with dogs is "suggestive of her connection with birth, for
28891-457: Was often used as a basis for the works of artists like Botticelli , Michelangelo and Rubens . One of the most important moral concepts to the Greeks was aversion to hubris . Hubris constituted many things, from rape to desecration of a corpse, and was a crime in Athens. Although pride and vanity were not considered sins themselves, the Greeks emphasized moderation. Pride only became hubris when it went to extremes, like any other vice. The same
29064-462: Was one on the road leading to the Acropolis . Likewise, shrines to Hecate at three way crossroads were created where food offerings were left at the new Moon to protect those who did so from spirits and other evils. In Zerynthus there was a cave dedicated to Hecate. Dogs were sacred to Hecate and associated with roads, domestic spaces, purification, and spirits of the dead. Dogs were also sacrificed to
29237-517: Was placed before the temple of the Wingless Nike in Athens. Though Alcamenes's original statue is lost, hundreds of copies exist, and the general motif of a triple Hecate situated around a central pole or column, known as a hekataion , was used both at crossroads shrines as well as at the entrances to temples and private homes. These typically depict her holding a variety of items, including torches, keys, serpents, and daggers. Some hekataia , including
29410-552: Was positive and thus likelier to have arisen from the dog's connection with birth than the dog's underworld associations." The association with dogs, particularly female dogs, could be explained by a metamorphosis myth in Lycophron : the friendly-looking female dog accompanying Hecate was originally the Trojan Queen Hecuba , who leapt into the sea after the fall of Troy and was transformed by Hecate into her familiar. The polecat
29583-475: Was repeatedly deferred in favor of updates to the more lucrative Collegiate . Work on a full revision finally began in 2009. In January 2013, the Third New International website service was rebranded as the Unabridged with the first "Release" of 4,800 new and revised entries added to the site. There were two further "Releases" in 2014. The revised website is not branded as the "Fourth edition" and it
29756-598: Was taught by Hecate: "I have mentioned to you before a certain young girl whom Hecate, daughter of Perses, has taught to work in drugs." Hecate was said to favour offerings of garlic , which was closely associated with her cult. She is also sometimes associated with cypress , a tree symbolic of death and the underworld, and hence sacred to a number of chthonic deities. A number of other plants (often poisonous, medicinal and/or psychoactive) are associated with Hecate. These include aconite (also called hecateis ), belladonna , dittany , and mandrake . It has been suggested that
29929-455: Was thought of eating and drinking. Anything done to excess was not considered proper. Ancient Greeks placed, for example, importance on athletics and intellect equally. In fact many of their competitions included both. Pride was not evil until it became all-consuming or hurtful to others. The Greeks had no religious texts they regarded as "revealed" scriptures of sacred origin, but very old texts including Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey , and
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