Hellespont

American  

[hel-uh-spont] / ˈhɛl əˌspɒnt /

noun

1. ancient name of the Dardanelles.

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Hellespont British  

/ ˈhɛlɪˌspɒnt /

noun

1. the ancient name for the Dardanelles

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Other Word Forms

• Hellespontine adjective

Example Sentences

In 405 BCE, the new Spartan fleet destroyed the Athenian navy at the Battle of Aegospotami in the Hellespont.

From Textbooks • Apr. 19, 2023

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

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2018

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.

From New York Times • Dec. 1, 2017

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.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 25, 2015

This occurred to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and the Hellespont, where Darius set up rulers in order to hold these cities for his own security and glory.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli