Dictionary.com Word Of The Day
Mar. 15, 2017
Cimmerian\si-MEER-ee-uh n\adjective
1. very dark; gloomy: deep, Cimmerian caverns.
2. Classical Mythology. of, relating to, or suggestive of a western
people believed to dwell in perpetual darkness.
QuotesThe sunny English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he
had gone out intoCimmerian night.
-- Edith Wharton, "Afterward," Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910
Origin of CimmerianCimmerian, also spelled Kimmerian, comes from the
Latin plural noun Cimmeriī, a borrowing from the Greek plural noun
Kimmérioi. In the Odyssey the mythical Cimmerians lived at the edge of
Oceanus that surrounds the earth in a city wrapped in mist and fog,
where the sun never shines, near the entrance to Hades. The historical,
ârealâ Cimmerians are mentioned in Assyrian sources (Gimirri), the
Hebrew Bible (Gomer in Genesis 10:2), and by the Greek historian
Herodotus (5th century b.c.). Herodotus says that the Cimmerians were
nomads driven south from the steppes of southern Russia by the
Scythians through the Caucasus Mountains, turned west, and c676 b.c.
overthrew the kingdom of Phrygia (in west central Turkey), whose last
king was Midas. The connection between myth and history is that there
are variant readings for HomerâsKimmérioiâCheimérioi, âWintry
People, Stormy peopleâ; and Kerbérioi âCerberusâs People,â
both of which were displaced by the historical Cimmerians. Cimmerian
entered English in the 16th century in reference to the nomads, and in
the 19th century in reference to the Homeric people.More From
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