Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Poseidon |
PoseidonNoun1. (Greek mythology) the god of the sea and earthquakes in ancient mythology; brother of Zeus and Hades and Hera; identified with Roman Neptune. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"Poseidon" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "a husband", "a lord", "the earth". |
Date "Poseidon" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
This article is about the Greek god. See also: Poseidon missile - Poseidon (Planet)
In Greek Mythology, Poseidon ("husband") was the god of the sea, known to the Romans as Neptune, and to the Etruscans as Nethuns. He was also the god of earthquakes and horses. Benthesikyme was sometimes mentioned as his sister.
Worship
In the Aegean world, Poseidon pre-existed Zeus and the other Olympic gods. Besides the familiar Olympian Poseidon, brother of Zeus, the familiar, trident-wielding sea-god accompanied by nereids and tritons blowing conch shells, Poseidon had a role in Minoan/Mycenaean cult, as Posei das, "Lord of the Goddess." Scratched notations at the Mycenaean palace-city that Homer called "sandy Pylos," using the Minoan syllabary we call Linear B, record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" and to "the Two Queens and the King." This is the pre-Olympian role of Posidon, linked with Demeter/Persephone.Similarly, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the Oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over.
Sailors drowned horses as a sacrifice to Poseidon.
Role In Society
Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage. When in a good mood, Poseidon created new islands and calm seas. When in a bad mood, he struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks.
In Art
Poseidon's chariot was pulled by a hippocampus or horses. He was associated with dolphins, tridents and three-pronged fish spears (tridents).He lived in a palace on the ocean floor, made of coral and gems.
Appellations
Poseidon was often referred to with the epithet Poseidon Enosichthon ("earth-shaker").
In Rome
Neptune was worshipped by the Romans primarily as a horse god, Neptune Equester, patron of horse-racing. He had a temple near the race tracks in Rome (built in 25 BC), the Circus Flaminius, as well as one in the Campus Martius. Only July 23, the Neptunalia was observed at the latter temple.
Birth and Childhood
Poseidon was a son of Cronus and Rhea. Like his brothers and sisters save Zeus, Poseidon was swallowed by his father. He was regurgitated only after Zeus forced Cronus to vomit up the infants he had eaten. Zeus and his brothers and sisters, along with the Hecatonchires, Gigantes and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans.When the world was divided in three, Zeus received the earth and sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea.
Adulthood
Lovers
His wife was Amphitrite.Poseidon once pursued Demeter. She turned herself into a mare; and he became a stallion and captured her. Their child was a horse, Arion.
Poseidon had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter through Cercyon, begetting Hippothoon. Cercyon had his daughter buried alive but Poseidon turned her into the spring, Alope, near Eleusis.
Poseidon rescued Amymone from a lecherous satyr and then fathered a child, Nauplius, by her.
A mortal woman named Tyro was married to Cretheus (with whom she had one son, Aeson) but loved Enipeus, a river god. She pursued Enipeus, who refused her advances. One day, Poseidon, filled with lust for Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus and from their union was born Pelias and Neleus, twin boys.
With Medusa, Poseidon had sexual intercourse on the floor of a temple to Athena. Medusa was changed into a monster and gave birth to Chrysaor and Pegasus.
After raping Caeneus, Poseidon fulfilled her request and changed her into a man.
Other Stories
Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens, in a competition with Poseidon. They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and the Athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprung up; the water was salty and not very useful, whereas Athena offered them an olive tree. The Athenians (or their king, Cecrops) accepted the olive tree and along with it Athena as their patron, for the olive tree brought wood, oil and food. This is thought to remember a clash between the inhabitants during Mycenaean times and newer immigrants. It is interesting to note that Athens at its height was a significant sea power, at one point defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis Island in a sea battle.Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus, were sent to serve King Laomedon. He had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy (it was later killed by Heracles).
Poseidon is best known for his hatred of Odysseus, preventing his return home to Ithaca for many years.
Poseidon loved Pelops and gave him a winged chariot, which he later used in the race against Oenomaus.
Consorts/Children
- With Aethra
- Theseus
- With Alope
- Hippothoon
- With Amphitrite
- Rhode
- Triton
- With Amymone
- Nauplius
- With Canace
- Aloeus
- With Celaeno
- Lycus
- With Chione
- Eumolpus
- With Chloris
- Poriclymenus
- With Demeter
- Despina
- With Europa
- Euphemus
- With Euryale
- Orion
- With Eurynome
- Adrastus
- With Gaia
- Antaeus
- Charybdis
- With Halia
- Rhode
- With Hippothoe
- Taphius
- Libya (No Children)
- With Lybie
- Lamia
- With Melia
- Amycus
- With Medusa
- Pegasus
- Chrysaor
- With Periboea
- Nausithous
- With Thoosa
- Polyphemus
- With Tyro
- Neleus
- Pelias
- Unknown mother
- Aon
- Briareus
- Byzas
- Cercyon
- Cycnus
- Evadne
- Lamia
- Lotis
- Rhodus
- Sinis
- Taras
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Poseidon."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Poseidon missile was the second US Navy ballistic missile system, powered by a two-stage solid fuel rocket. It succeeded the Polaris missile beginning in 1972, bringing major advances in warheads and accuracy. It was followed by Trident I in 1979, and Trident II in 1990.Poseidon, although longer and considerably heavier than Polaris A-3, had the same 4600 km (2500 nautical mile) range. It also had multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) and improved accuracy.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Poseidon missile."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
POSEIDON | English | European project on integrated VTS sea environment and interactive data on-line network | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Ocean | Hydrography, hydrographer; Neptune, Poseidon, Thetis, Triton, Naiad, Nereid; sea nymph, Siren; trident, dolphin. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Poseidon |
| English words defined with "Poseidon": Neptune ♦ Proteus ♦ Triton ♦ Zeus. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Poseidon": Delos ♦ Giants, Gods ♦ Sea Deities, Shields. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Poseidon" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (Poseidon), German (Poseidon). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Poseidon Adventure (1972) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Figure 52. Krummel and Ruppin bottle devised by Professor Otto Krummel in 1907 and modified by Ernst Ruppin in 1912. Panel A - 3-liter bottle descending. Panel B. 3-liter model ascending. Panel C. 1-liter bottle descending. Panel D. 1-liter bottle ascending. This type of bottle was used by the POSEIDON about 1912. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Poseidon" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 98.04% of the time. "Poseidon" is used about 51 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) | 98.04% | 50 | 48,117 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.96% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 51 | 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. |
| Language | Translations for "Poseidon"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | Poseidoni. (various references) | |
Dutch | Poseidon. (various references) | |
Esperanto | Posejdono. (various references) | |
German | Poseidon. (various references) | |
Greek | οσειδώνασ (Neptune). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 海神 (Neptune, sea god). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | かいし" (bringing up to date, care, caution, congeniality, conversion, depth of the sea, discretion, doctor's hospital rounds, Neptune, precaution, progress, reform, reformation, satisfaction, sea god, seaquake, transgression), かいじ" (ash, complete destruction, embers, mysterious person, Neptune, sea god), わたつみ (Neptune, picking cotton, sea, sea god). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | oseidonpay.(various references) | |
Russian | посейдон. (various references) | |
Spanish | Poseidón. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | Посейдон. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Poseidon" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Pasundan, Ponsardin, poseiden, Posidon, Posidonia, posiedon. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: poisoned. | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-i-n-o-o-p-s" | |
-1 letter: snooped, spooned. | |
-2 letters: donsie, isopod, nodose, noised, noosed, odeons, onside, opined, opines, poinds, poised, poison, ponied, ponies, sniped, spined. | |
-3 letters: dines, dipso, dopes, eidos, eosin, nides, nodes, noise, noose, nosed, odeon, opens, opine, opsin, peins, pends, penis, peons, pined, pines, pions, poind, poise, ponds, pones, poods, poons, posed, siped, snide, snipe, snood, snoop. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-i-n-o-o-p-s" | |
+1 letter: opsonized, pinewoods. | |
+2 letters: deposition, desorption, duopsonies, empoisoned, endoscopic, isoprenoid, monopodies, opsonified, picosecond, positioned. | |
+3 letters: compendious, decomposing, depositions, desorptions, endopodites, endoscopies, indophenols, monopolised, picoseconds, provisioned, pyroxenoids, radiophones, videophones. | |
+4 letters: deportations, depositional, despoliation, endomorphies, endomorphism, epoxidations, monodisperse, periodontics, periodontist, prednisolone, proboscidean, processioned, repositioned, spinsterhood. | |
+5 letters: compendiously, conidiophores, corresponding, counterpoised, decomposition, decompression, depopulations, despoliations, dispossession, dodecaphonies, dodecaphonist, endomorphisms, endoperoxides, mispositioned, mispronounced, nondeposition, periodontists, philodendrons, postmodernism, postmodernist, posttensioned, preconditions, prednisolones, proboscideans, propositioned, redisposition, reproductions, reprovisioned, spinsterhoods, urediniospore. | |
| 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. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Abbreviations 11. Acronyms 12. Derivations | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
