Thersites

American  

[ther-sahy-teez] / θərˈsaɪ tiz /

noun

1. (in theIliad ) a Greek who accused Agamemnon of greed and Achilles of cowardice during the Trojan War.

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Thersites British  

/ θəˈsaɪtiːz /

noun

1. the ugliest and most evil-tongued fighter on the Greek side in the Trojan War, killed by Achilles when he mocked him

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Example Sentences

Impossible to imagine Lear’s Fool succeeding him or Thersites commanding the Greek army.

From The Guardian • Feb. 9, 2017

The “scabrous” Thersites in Troilus and Cressida speaks with relentless, scene-stealing venom.

From The Guardian • Feb. 9, 2017

Thersites skulks away, silenced, his Iliadic cameo at an end—but his long literary career as self-appointed flayer of heroic vanities is just beginning.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 9, 2016

In Troilus and Cressida, the strangely comic character Thersites announces Ajax by saying “for, whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax.”

From Time • Sep. 20, 2013

You may ask, as Menippus in Lucian, which is Nireus, which Thersites, which the beggar, which the knight;—for they are all suited in the same form of a kind of nasty poverty.

From Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters by Earle, John