Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"Hades" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "to be unseen". |
Date "Hades" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1651. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Satire | HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live. Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris. When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a majority vote on translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; but a conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At the next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen, somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!" Years afterward the good prelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the means (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable and immortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Bible | Hades that which is out of sight, a Greek word used to denote the state or place of the dead. All the dead alike go into this place. To be buried, to go down to the grave, to descend into hades, are equivalent expressions. In the LXX. this word is the usual rendering of the Hebrew sheol, the common receptacle of the departed (Gen. 42:38; Ps. 139:8; Hos. 13:14; Isa. 14:9). This term is of comparatively rare occurrence in the Greek New Testament. Our Lord speaks of Capernaum as being "brought down to hell" (hades), i.e., simply to the lowest debasement, (Matt. 11:23). It is contemplated as a kind of kingdom which could never overturn the foundation of Christ's kingdom (16:18), i.e., Christ's church can never die. In Luke 16:23 it is most distinctly associated with the doom and misery of the lost. In Acts 2:27-31 Peter quotes the LXX. version of Ps. 16:8-11, plainly for the purpose of proving our Lord's resurrection from the dead. David was left in the place of the dead, and his body saw corruption. Not so with Christ. According to ancient prophecy (Ps. 30:3) he was recalled to life. Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Hades (gr. Αδης - ha'-deez or Αἵδης - hay'-deez) ("unseen") means both the ancient Greek "hell" or abode of the dead and the god of that underworld (the corresponding Roman god was Pluto ("wealth"), Dis Pater or Orcus; the corresponding Etruscan god was Aita). Haidou was the genitive form of the word, meaning "the house of Hades"; its nominative form, Haides, was originally a designation of the abode of the dead. (A related Hebrew word, She'Ol, for the abode of the dead also meant literally "unseen.")
In Roman mythology, the entrance to the underworld was located at Avernus, a crater near Cumae.
"Avernus" was also an alternate name for the underworld in Roman mythology.
The Inferi Dii were the Roman gods of the underworld.
The deceased entered the underworld by crossing the river Acheron, ferried across by Charon (kair'-on), who charged an obolus (coin) for passage. The far side of the river was guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog defeated by Heracles (or Hercules as the Romans referred to him).
After Cerberus, the shades of the departed entered Tartarus, the land of the dead.
The five rivers of Hades are Acheron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, Lethe and Styx. See also Mnemosyne and Eridanus.
Hades ruled the dead, assisted by demons over whom he had complete authority. He strictly forbade his subjects to leave his domain and would become quite enraged when anyone tried to leave, or if someone tried to steal his prey from him.
Besides Heracles, few other living persons ventured to the Underworld: Er, Achilles, Odysseus, Aeneas, and Theseus were among those heroes who descended to Hades while they were still living.
None of them was especially pleased with what they witnessed in the realm of the dead.
In particular the Trojan War hero Achilles, whom Odysseus met in Hades (although some believe that Achilles dwells in the Isles of the Blest), said:
"Do not speak soothingly to me of death, glorious Odysseus.
I should choose to serve as the hireling of another, rather than to be lord over the dead that have perished."
(Achilles' soul to Odysseus. Homer, Odyssey 11.488)
Although he was an Olympian, he spent most of the time in his dark castle in the Underworld. This Lord of Hell, who was formidable in battle, proved his ferociousness in the famous battle of the Olympians versus the Titans, which established the rule of Zeus.
Because of his dark and morbid personality he was not especially liked by neither the gods nor the mortals. His character is described as "fierce and inexorable", and by far of all the gods he was most hated by mortals. He was not however an evil god, for although he was stern, cruel and unpitying, he was still just. Hades ruled the Underworld and therefore most often associated with death and was feared by men, but he was not Death itself - The actual embodiment of Death was another god, Thanatos.
When the Greek prayed to Hades, they banged their hands on the ground to be sure he would hear them. Black animals, such as sheep, were sacrificed to him, and it is believed that at one time even human sacrifices were offered.
The blood from sacrifices from Hades dripped into a pit so it could reach him.
The person who offered the sacrifice had to turn away his face.
Every hundred years festivals were held in his honor, called the Secular Games.
Hades' weapon was a two-pronged fork, which he used to shatter anything that was in his way or not to his liking, much like Poseidon did with his trident.
This ensign of his power was a staff with which he drove the shades of the dead into the lower world.
His identifying possessions included a famed helmet, given to him by the Cyclopes, which made anyone who wore it invisible. Hades was known to sometimes loan his helmet of invisibility to both gods and men (such as Perseus). His dark chariot, drawn by four coal-black horses, always made for a fearsome and impressive sight.
His other ordinary attributes were the narcissus and cypress plants, the Key of Hades and Cerberus, the three-headed dog. He sat on an ebony throne.
He was the ancestor of the Gauls.
The Roman ruler of the underworld and fortune, similar to the Greek Hades.
Every hundred years, the Ludi Tarentini were celebrated in his honor.
The Gauls regarded Dis Pater as their ancestor.
Alternative: Dispater, Dis
In works of art, Hades resembles his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, except that his hair falls over his forehead, and his appearance is portrayed as dark and gloomy.
Eventually a deal was made, with the messenger god Hermes acting as the mediator - Persephone would spend half the year with her mother, the goddess of the harvest.
The Greeks believed that while Persephone was with Hades, her mother missed her so much that she withdrew her gifts from the world and winter came.
In the spring, when Persephone rejoined her mother, Demeter would make things grow again.
According to some, Persephone eventually became as cruel as her husband.
Hades the Place
There were several sections of Hades, including the Elysian Fields, the equivalent of Heaven, and Tartarus, the equivalent of Hell. According to some later legends, Erebus was part of Hades.
It was where the dead had to pass immediately after dying.
Confusingly, Erebus was often used as a synonym for Hades, the god, as well. Hades the person
In Greek mythology, the god of the underworld was named "Hades" because and after the unseen kingdom of that name. Hades was born as a son of Titanss Cronus and Rhea. He had three older sisters Hestia, Demeter and Hera as well as two younger brothers Poseidon and Zeus. Cronus fearing that his children would grow to depose him reportedly devoured them upon birth with the exception of Zeus and according to some accounts Hera. Upon reaching adulthood Zeus managed to force his father to disgorge his siblings. After their release the six younger gods along with allies they managed to gather challenged their parents and uncles for power in Titanomachy, a devine war. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods. Following their victory Hades and his two younger brothers Poseidon and Zeus drew lots for realms to rule. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld, the unseen realm to which the dead go upon leaving the world. Methaphorically, each one received one object, Zeus a thunder spear, Poseidon a trident and Hades a helmet that shift invisible to its carrier.
Hades obtained his eventual wife, Persephone, through trickery - a story that was a late addition to Greek mythology, connected with the rise of the Mysteries. Worship
Hades was a fearsome figure to those still living; in no hurry to meet him, they were reticent to swear oaths in his name. To many, simply to say the word "Hades" was frightening. So, a euphemism was pressed into use. Since precious minerals come from under the earth (i.e., the "underworld" ruled by Hades) he was considered to have control of these as well, and was referred to as "Ploutos", Greek "wealth." This explains the name given him by the Romans, "Pluto." Sophocles explained referring to Hades as "the rich one" with these words: "the gloomy Hades enriches himself with our sighs and our tears."
In addition, he was called Clymenus ("notorious"), Eubuleus ("well-guessing") and Polydegmon ("who receives many"). Dis Pater
In Roman mythology, the god Dis Pater ("the wealthy father") was an underworld deity later subsumed by Pluto, the Roman Hades. Every one-hundred years, a festival called the Ludi Tarentini was celebrated in his name. Hades In Art
Hades is always represented as a stern, dark, bearded man, with tightly closed lips, a crown on his head, a sceptre and a key in hand, to show how carefully he guards those who enter his domains, and how vain are their hopes to escape.
No temples were dedicated to him, and his statues are very rare. Persephone
The wife of Hades, and queen of the Underworld, was Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter.
Persephone did not marry Hades willingly, but was abducted by him one day while picking flowers with her friends.
Even Zeus was powerless to get her out of the Underworld when her mother, Demeter, asked him to act on her behalf. Orpheus/Eurydice
Hades only showed mercy once. Because the music of Orpheus was so hauntingly sad, he allowed Orpheus to bring his wife, Eurydice, back to the land of the living as long as she walked behind him and he never tried to look at her face until they got to the surface. Orpheus agreed but failed and lost Eurydice forever. Leuce/Mintho
Like his brother Zeus and other ancient gods, Hades wasn't the most faithful of husbands. He pursued and loved the nymph Mintho and to punish her for this, his jealous wife Persephone turned Mintho into the plant called mint.
Likewise, the nymph Leuce, who was also ravished by him, was metamorphosed by Hades into a white poplar tree after her death. Theseus/Pirithous
Hades imprisoned Theseus and Pirithous, who had pledged to marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen and together they kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry.
Pirithous chose Persephone.
They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades.
Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast; as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Theseus was eventually rescued by Heracles.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hades."
| 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 |
HADES | English | High Activity Disposal Experimental Site | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: HadesSynonyms: infernal region (n), netherworld (n), underworld (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Hell | Tartarus, Hades, Avernus, Styx, Stygian creek, pit of Acheron, Cocytus; infernal regions, inferno, shades below, realms of Pluto. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Hades |
| English words defined with "Hades": Acheron, Acheronian, Acherontic ♦ Cerberus, Charon, Cocytus ♦ Hadean ♦ Lethe ♦ Orpheus ♦ Plutonian, Poseidon ♦ River Acheron, River Cocytus, River Lethe, River Styx ♦ Sheol, Stygian, Styx ♦ Tantalus, Tartarean ♦ Zeus. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Hades": Amenthes ♦ BRIMSTONE ♦ Cerberus ♦ Ifurin, INFERIAE ♦ leonine, Leth'e, Limbus Patrum ♦ Phlegethon ♦ TANTALUS ♦ Weather. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Hades" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (Hades), German (Hades). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | So Hades, you finally made it! How are things down in the underworld? (Hercules; writing credit: Ron Clements; Barry Johnson) A Cromwell would send our ariel fleet to blow a German city to Hades each time the foe wrecked one of our towns. (Labour of Love; writing credit: Andrea Piva) Hades promised to help. (Kingdom Hearts; writing credit: Billy Gallo; Robert Gillings) Yes, I promise, oh Priceless Prince of Hades, that by my many wiles I will finish Santa off forever, and see that the children commit terrible deeds, and make Santa Claus angry! (Santa Claus; writing credit: René Cardona; Adolfo Torres Portillo) | |
Movie/TV Titles | When Law Comes to Hades (1923) Hades (2000) Hotter Than Hades! (1980) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Homer | Hades is relentless and unyielding. |
| Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. | |
Theognis | No man takes with him to Hades all his exceeding wealth. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox: The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!" It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Hades" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 93.33% of the time. "Hades" is used about 75 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) | 93.33% | 70 | 39,981 |
| Noun (plural) | 6.67% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 75 | 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 |
hades | 487 |
saint seiya hades | 304 |
hades picture | 45 |
god greek hades | 41 |
escaping hades | 31 |
hades ovas saint seiya | 22 |
hades ova | 21 |
hades manga saint seiya | 13 |
hades ovas | 13 |
hades saint seiya wallpaper | 12 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "Hades"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | Xhehenem (hell), Skëterrë (hell, inferno), Ferr (blazes, hell, inferno, underworld). (various references) | |
Arabic | حادس. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | Ад. (various references) | |
Czech | Podzemní Svìt. (various references) | |
Dutch | Hades. (various references) | |
Farsi | عالم اسفل(افسانه یونان), جهنم (Hell, Inferno). (various references) | |
Finnish | tuonela (realm of the dead), manala (abode of the dead), mana (abode of the dead). (various references) | |
French | Enfers. (various references) | |
German | Hades. (various references) | |
Greek | άδησ (inferno, underworld). (various references) | |
Hebrew | ֲי" ום, אול. (various references) | |
Hungarian | Hadész, Alvilág (devildom, gangland, inferno, nether regions, nether world, shades, underworld). (various references) | |
Italian | Ade. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 幽冥界 (realm of the dead), 下界 (lower bound, the earth, the nether world, this world), 夜見の国 (realm of the dead, the next world), 奈落 (eternity, hell, theatre basement), 冥土 (realm of the dead, the other world, the underworld), 冥府 (realm of the dead, sheol), 常世の国 (distant country, heaven), 幽冥 (dark and light, deep and strange, semidarkness, the present and the other world), 黄土 (earth, loess, yellow ochre, yellow soil), 幽明 (dark and light, deep and strange, semidarkness, the present and the other world), 幽界 (realm of the dead), 九泉 (nether regions), 泉下 (the hereafter), 黄泉 (underground spring, underworld), 黄泉の国 (realm of the dead, the next world), 冥界 (realm of the dead). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | おうど (earth, loess, royal or imperial domain, yellow ochre, yellow soil), ならく (eternity, hell, theatre basement), きゅうせ" (armistice, bows and arrows, nether regions, truce, war), せ"か (elective course or subject, fruit of battle, military gains, ravages of war, selected poems, selection of poems, sorting fruit, specialized course, the hereafter, war, war damages, war results), "うど (advanced, altitude, arable soil, barren or infertile soil, earth, hardness, height, intensity of light, loess, solidity, wasteland, yellow ochre, yellow soil), めいふ (realm of the dead, sheol), めいど (brightness, realm of the dead, the other world, the underworld), めいかい (clarion, clarity, clear understanding, realm of the dead), ゆうかい (abduction, fusion, kidnapping, realm of the dead), ゆうめいかい (realm of the dead), ゆうめい (dark and light, deep and strange, fame, great renown, semidarkness, the present and the other world), よみのくに (realm of the dead, the next world), よみ (reading, underworld), 'かい (physical world, surgeon, the earth, the externals, the nether world, this world), と"よのくに (distant country, heaven). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | adeshay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | Inferno (Abaddon, geiger counter, hell, infertile, pander, riffraff, underworld), Inclinar-se (bend, bow, camber, crouch, decline, lean, slope, sloping, stoop, tilt, tip), Casa De Jogo (gambling table, hellbender, shebang), Antro (antre, cave, den, haunt, hell, hole, lair, lie, sink). (various references) | |
Russian | Ад (Abaddon), Царство Теней. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | had (hell), pakao (abyss, hell, inferno, perdition). (various references) | |
Spanish | Lugar De Torturas, Lugar De Padecer, Infierno (collection of immoral books, darkness, heck, hell, inferno, pit, underworld). (various references) | |
Swedish | Underjorden (the lower regions, underworld). (various references) | |
Thai | นรก. (various references) | |
Turkish | Cehennem Tanrısı (Pluto), Cehennem (blazes, gehenna, hell, infernal, inferno, lower world, nether world, swelter, underworld). (various references) | |
Ukranian |
