Word of the Day

Monday, November 29, 2004

Promethean

\pruh-MEE-thee-un\ , adjective;

Of or pertaining to Prometheus.

Boldly original or creative.

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Quotes:

Three years later, he became the first American playwright to achieve the Nobel Prize for Literature and was embraced as Broadway's Promethean emblem.

-- Arthur Gelb and Barbara Gelb, O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Promethean self-confidence of the new sciences had seemed likely to sweep everything before it.

-- Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts

Origin:

Prometheus, "forethought" in Greek, was the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to mankind. For this, Zeus chained him to a rock where a vulture preyed upon his liver until Hercules saved him. The name comes from promethes, "forethoughtful," from pro, "forward" + an element perhaps derived from menos, "mind."