lethe

See also: Lethe and Léthé

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈliːθi/

Etymology 1

Latin Lēthē, from Ancient Greek Λήθη (Lḗthē, “forgetfulness”)

Noun

lethe (usually uncountable, plural lethes)

  1. Forgetfulness of the past; oblivion.
    • Shakspeare, Antony and Cleopatra
      The conquering wine hath steept our sense
      In soft and delicate lethe.
    • 1980, Joseph J. Kockelmans, On Heidegger and Language, Northwestern University Press (→ISBN), p. 241:
      What does it mean to say that the stream of silence originates in lethe? It means, above all, that the stream has its source (Quelle) in that which has not yet been said and which must remain unsaid: the "unsaid."

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Possibly influenced by Latin lētum

Noun

lethe (usually uncountable, plural lethes)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Death. (Shakespearean)
    • Shakespeare, The Life and Death of Julius Caesar (1623) iii. i. 207:
      Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart, Here didst thou fall: and here thy hunters stand, Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe.

References

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for lethe in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

lethe (plural lethes)

  1. Alternative form of lyth

References

Old Irish

Noun

lethe

  1. Alternative spelling of leithe

Mutation
Old Irish mutation
RadicalLenitionNasalization
lethe
also llethe after a proclitic		 lethe
pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/		 lethe
also llethe after a proclitic
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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