pegasus
noun
Simple meaning
The immortal winged horse that sprang from the blood of the slain Medusa.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehguhsuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛɡəsəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Greek mythology
A winged horse fabled to have sprung from the blood of Medusa when she was slain. He is noted for causing, with a blow of his hoof, Hippocrene, the inspiring fountain of the Muses, to spring from Mount Helicon. Bellerophon tamed and rode upon Pegasus when he defeated the Chimaera.
Greek mythology
The immortal winged horse that sprang from the blood of the slain Medusa; was tamed by Bellerophon with the help of a bridle given him by Athena; as the flying horse of the Muses it is a symbol of highflying imagination
astronomy
A constellation of the northern sky, near the vernal equinoctial point, representing the winged horse. Its three brightest stars, with the brightest star of Andromeda, form the asterism of the Great Square of Pegasus.
astronomy
A constellation in the northern hemisphere near Andromeda and Pisces
originally Greek mythologyfantasyoccasionally proscribed
Any winged horse; pterippus.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (Greek mythology) A winged horse fabled to have sprung from the blood of Medusa when she was slain. He is noted for causing, with a blow of his hoof, Hippocrene, the inspiring fountain of the Muses, to spring from Mount Helicon. Bellerophon tamed and rode upon Pegasus when he defeated the Chimaera.
Used this way, pegasus is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It criticises, but without shouting.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Critical but measured
Nearby words
- flying horse , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: winged horse fabled to have sprung from the blood of Medusa when she was slain. He is noted for causing
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.