Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Scylla |
ScyllaNoun1. (Greek mythology) a sea nymph transformed into a sea monster who lived on one side of a narrow strait; drowned and devoured sailors who tried to escape Charybdis (a whirlpool) on the other side of the strait. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Scylla" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Literature | Scylla daughter of Nisus, promised to deliver Megara into the hands of Minos. To redeem this promise she had to cut off a golden hair on her father's head, which she effected while he was asleep. Minos, her lover, despised her for this treachery, and Scylla threw herself from a rock into the sea. At death she was changed into a lark, and Nisus into a hawk. Scylla turned into a rock by Circe "has no connection" with the daughter of Nisus. "Think of Scylla's fate. Changed to a bird, and sent to fly in air, She dearly pays for Nisus' injured hair." Pope: Rape of the Lock, iii. Scylla Glaucus, a fisherman, was in love with Scylla; but Circe, out of jealousy, changed her into a hideous monster, and set dogs and wolves to bark round her incessantly. On this Scylla threw herself into the sea and became a rock. It is said that the rock Scylla somewhat resembles a woman at a distance, and the noise of the waves dashing against it is not unlike the barking of dogs and wolves. "Glaucus, lost to joy, Curst in his love by vengeful circe's hate, Attending wept his Scylla's hapless fate." Camoeus: Lusiad, bk. vi. Avoiding Scylla, he fell into Charybdis. Trying to avoid one error, he fell into another; or, trying to avoid one danger, he fell into another equally fatal. Scylla and Charybdis are two rocks between Italy and Sicily. In one was a cave where "Scylla dwelt," and on the other Charybdis dwelt under a fig-tree. Ships which tried to avoid one were often wrecked on the other rock. It was Circe who changed Scylla into a frightful seamonster, and Jupiter who changed Chanrybdis into a whirlpool. "When I shun Scylla your father, I fall into Charybdis your mother."- Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, iii. 5. Between Scylla and Charybdis. Between two difficulties or fatal works. To fall from Scylla into Charybdis - out of the frying-pan into the fire. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Scylla was the Princess of Megara, daughter of King Nisus who was invincible as long as a lock of red hair still existed, hidden in his white hair. King Minos of Crete attacked Megara but Nisus knew he could not be beat because he still had his lock of red hair. His daughter, Scylla, fell in love with Minos and proved it by cutting the red hair off her father's head. Nisus died and Megara fell to Crete. Minos killed Scylla for disobeying her father. She was changed into a seabird, relentlessly pursued by her father, who was a sea eagle.
Scylla is one of the two sea monsters in Greek mythology (the other being Charybdis) which lives on one side of a narrow channel of water. Traditionally this has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily but more recently this theory has been challenged and the alternative location of Cape Skilla in north west Greece suggested. Scylla has the face and torso of a woman, but from her flanks grow six dog heads and her body below that sprouts twelve canine legs and a fish's tail. She was one of the children of Phorcys and Ceto known as the Phorcydes.
Scylla was originally a beautiful nymph. She scorned her many suitors and chose to live among the Nereids instead, until one day Glaucus saw and fell in love with her. Glaucus was a mortal fisherman who had previously been transformed by chewing a plant, gaining the form of a fish from his waist down. When Glaucus declared her love to Scylla she fled, taking him for a monster. Glaucus sought the help of Circe, hoping that this witch could make Scylla to love him with her herbs, but Circe fell in love with Glaucus herself and asked him to forget Scylla. Glaucus rejected her request, declaring that his love for Scylla was eternal.
Circe was enraged by Glaucus' refusal, and turned her anger on the girl whom he loved. She went and poisoned the water which Scylla used to bathe with her magical herbs. When Scylla waded into the water, the submerged half of her body was transformed into a combination of fish joined with six ferocious dogs' heads sprouting from around her waist. The dogs attacked and devoured anyone who came near, beyond her ability to control, and Scylla fled to the shore of the strait to live there alone.
It is said that by the time Aeneas' fleet came through the strait after the fall of Troy, Scylla had been changed into a dangerous rock outcropping which still stands there to this day.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Scylla."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Danger | At stake, in question; precarious, critical, ticklish; slippery, slippy; hanging by a thread; Verb: with a halter round one's neck; between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between two fires; on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of a precipice, on the verge of a precipice, on the edge of a volcano; in the lion's den, on slippery ground, under fire; not out of the wood. |
Difficulty | Under a difficulty; in a box; in difficulty, in hot water, in the suds, in a cleft stick, in a fix, in the wrong box, in a scrape; Noun: in deep water, in a fine pickle; in extremis; between two stools, between Scylla and Charybdis; surrounded by shoals, surrounded by breakers, surrounded by quicksands; at cross purposes; not out of the wood. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Scylla |
| English words defined with "Scylla": Charybdis. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Scylla": Bel-fires ♦ Inter Canem et Lupum. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "Scylla": Scyllaea. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Scylla" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (Scylla), French (Scylla). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | My name is Scylla, and I'm a whore. (I, Claudius; writing credit: Robert Graves; Jack Pulman) | |
Lyrics | Caught between the Scylla and Charybidis ("Wrapped Around Your Finger"; performing artist: The Police) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Scylla (1967) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Scylla" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 78.57% of the time. "Scylla" is used about 14 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 78.57% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Noun (singular) | 21.43% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 14 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
scylla | 45 |
scylla and charybdis | 20 |
picture scylla | 8 |
oti scylla | 4 |
charybdis picture scylla | 3 |
glaucus scylla | 3 |
scylla serrata | 2 |
charibdes scylla | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "Scylla"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Danish | Scylla-eksperiment (Scylla experiment). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Dutch | Scylla. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | Skilo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
French | Scylla. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
German | szylla. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Greek | σκύλα (bitch). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Italian | esperimento Scylla (Scylla experiment). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | yllascay Scylla-experiment (Scylla experiment). (various references) ปีศาจทะเล (เทพนิยายกรีกโบรา"). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Scylla" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Csillag, Csillik, Cylla, Scylax. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| Words rhyming with "Scylla" (pronounced 'Scyl"la'): Ala, Algarovilla, Ampulla, Angola, Armilla, Arolla, Axilla, Bandala, Banderilla, Barilla, bengola, Beteela, Bulla, Cabrilla, Calcavella, Calla, Camarilla, Canella, Capella, Cappella, Carambola, Cedilla, Cella, Chinchilla, Cicala, Claribella, Coccinella, Codilla, Columbella, Columella, Coronilla, Dendrocoela, Emgalla, Euplectella, Fabella, Favella, Fenes-tella, Fibrilla, flotilla, Fovilla, Fringilla, gala, Gentianella, gorgonzola, gorilla, granadilla, Granilla, guerilla, Gula, Impalla, Intermaxilla, Kamala, koala, lamella, Lirella, Locustella, mammilla, mandola, mantilla, Manzanilla, Marginella, Marsala, maxilla, medulla, Micella, Mochila, Mulla, Nyula, Olla, osteocolla, Padella, Palla, palola, Papilla, Paracorolla, Patella, Pathopoela, Perilla, Phainopepla, Philomela, Pimola, Praemaxilla, Predella, Premaxilla, Pseudonavicella, Pseudostella, Psylla, Pteryla, Pulsatilla, Pyla, Rachilla, ravenala, Rhabdocoela, Rhachilla, Rhynchonella, Rosella, Rotella, rubella, Sabadilla, Sabella, Saccharilla, Saltarella, sapodilla, sarsaparilla, Scagliola, Scala, Scaliola, scintilla, Semolella, sequela, Sigla, Spongilla, Squamella, squilla, stela, Stola, Strobila, Subumbrella, Sula, Supermaxilla, Symphyla, Talegalla, tarantella, tequila, Tetracoralla, Thecla, Tigella, Tola, tortilla, Trehala, Tremella, Turbinella, Turritella, umbrella, Urodela, Valhalla, Vanilla, Varicella, Velella, Villa, Villanella, Vitrella, Vorticella, Wyla, Zilla, Zoochlorella, Zorilla. (additional references) |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-l-l-s-y" | |
-1 letter: acyls, calls, clays, sally, scall, scaly. | |
-2 letters: acyl, alls, ally, call, cays, clay, lacs, lacy, lays, sall, slay. | |
-3 letters: all, als, ays, cay, lac, las, lay, sac, sal, say, sly. | |
-4 letters: al, as, ay, la, ya. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-l-l-s-y" | |
+1 letter: cullays, slackly. | |
+2 letters: callboys, calycles, casually, causally, classily, fiscally, rascally, scalably, socially, syllabic. | |
+3 letters: basically, billycans, callosity, callously, calyculus, carryalls, cyclicals, musically, scallywag, scholarly, secularly, sonically, specially, stoically, syllabics, synclinal. | |
+4 letters: bellyaches, buckyballs, carelessly, clannishly, colossally, cosmically, disyllabic, especially, galactosyl, miscellany, mosaically, muscularly, mystically, physically, rustically, salicylate, scallywags, scenically, societally, spectrally, specularly, statically, sterically, subvocally, suicidally, surgically, symbolical, tactlessly, unsocially, viscerally. | |
+5 letters: ancestrally, ascetically, aseptically, bellyachers, biosocially, cadastrally, callipygous, cataclysmal, caustically, ceaselessly, celestially, cladophylls, clamorously, classically, commensally, crystalline, crystallise, crystallite, crystallize, crystalloid, deistically, drastically, elastically, encyclicals, episcopally, eristically, eucalyptols, galactosyls, glycosylate, gracelessly, larcenously, lyricalness, maliciously, masculinely, matchlessly, miasmically, mycoplasmal, nonsyllabic, oscillatory, osmotically, placelessly, plasmolytic, plastically, polycrystal, prosaically, psychically, recyclables, salaciously, salicylates, satanically, satirically, sectionally, seismically, skeptically, somatically, spastically, spherically, syllabicate, syllabicity, trisyllabic, unscholarly, whimsically. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 63 79 6C 6C 61 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... -.-. -.--. .-.. .-.. .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01100011 01111001 01101100 01101100 01100001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S c y l l a |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 0063 0079 006C 006C 0061 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)536991787867 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
