Hellespont

[hel-uh-spont]

noun

1. ancient name of the Dardanelles.

Hellespont

/ ˈhɛlɪˌspɒnt /

noun

1. the ancient name for the Dardanelles

Other Word Forms

• Hellespontine adjective

Example Sentences

Greek triremes sank his ships at Salamis, and Xerxes fled back across the Hellespont, abandoning his army to destruction.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He was a man of letters but also, like his hero Byron, a man of action — a war hero and a restless adventurer, who even swam the Hellespont when he was 69.

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Since then, Mr. Murie said, the business has grown from 90 swimmers a year to more than 2,500 taking trips to more than 30 locations around the globe, including the Hellespont in late August.

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The strait on its southern shore is the Dardanelles—or, to use the old romantic term, the Hellespont, as it was called when Byron swam across it, in 1810.

Read more on The New Yorker

An intellectual counter to the polymath Fermor, she was there when, aged 69, he swam the Hellespont in imitation of his idol Lord Byron.

Read more on BBC