Paphian
Americanadjective
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of or relating to Paphos, an ancient city of Cyprus sacred to Aphrodite.
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of or relating to love, especially illicit sexual love; erotic; wanton.
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noting or pertaining to Aphrodite or to her worship or service.
noun
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the Paphian, Aphrodite: so called from her cult center at Paphos.
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(often lowercase) a prostitute.
adjective
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of or relating to Paphos
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of or relating to Aphrodite
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literary of sexual love
Etymology
Origin of Paphian
1605–15; < Latin Paphi ( us ) (< Greek Páphios of Paphos, of Aphrodite) + -an
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Him, who instructs the sons of earth To thrid the tangled dance of mirth; Him, who was nursed with infant Love, And cradled in the Paphian grove; Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms Has fondled in her twining arms.
From Project Gutenberg
The Poet meets Apollo on the hill, And Pan and Flora and the Paphian Queen, And infant na�ads bathing in the rill, And dryad maids that dance upon the green, And fauns and Oreads in the silver sheen They wear in summer, when the air is still.
From Project Gutenberg
And Plutarch replied,—The heminerus, as far as I know, does not differ from the half-pickled fish which have been already mentioned, and which your elegant Archestratus speaks of; but, however, Sopater the Paphian has mentioned the heminerus, in his Slave of Mystacus, saying— He then received the caviar from a sturgeon Bred in the mighty Danube, dish much prized, Half-fresh, half-pickled, by the wandering Scythians.
From Project Gutenberg
All those graces of symmetry, smoothness, and lustre, which assemble in the imagination of the painter when he calls from the bosom of her natal deep the Paphian divinity, blended their perfections in the shape, complexion, and hair of this lady.
From Project Gutenberg
It was there, too, I saw a Venus, radiant in innocence and beauty and sweetness and grace, as if new ‘bathed in Paphian foam’—the only Venus I ever could have loved.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
