epithalamium
Americannoun
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epithalamiums,
plural
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epithalamia
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of epithalamium
C17: from Latin, from Greek epithalamion marriage song, from thalamos bridal chamber
Explanation
An epithalamium is a special poem written in honor of a marriage. Many epithalamiums are addressed to brides on their wedding days. The poetic form called an epithalamium started in ancient Greece as a song that was sung to the bride and groom on their wedding night by a group of children. Greek and Roman poets, including the poet Sappho, developed the epithalamium, in some cases celebrating specific marriages, and the 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser wrote Epithalamium for his own bride. The word means "bridal song," epithalamion in Greek, from epi, "upon," and thalamos, "bridal chamber."
Vocabulary lists containing epithalamium
Poetry: Genres
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Reading: Literature - Poetry - High School
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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.
See Examples For:
In fact, there’s a special term for a wedding poem: epithalamium.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 13, 2018
"Bees' Nests", hitchhiking "for hours, pole-axed by Marzine / on sick-making bends", an ancestor among the translators of the King James Bible, Geordie slang, birthday greetings and an epithalamium: this is a collection of range and richness.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 28, 2013
Included is a series of love poems, a kind of epithalamium to his young wife, who was his student at Bennington.
From Time Magazine Archive
He also wrote an epithalamium addressed to Lucretia.
From Lucretia Borgia According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day by Ferdinand Gregorovius
Fragments of his other pieces are preserved in Stobaeus; the epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia is not his.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Slice 7 "Bible" to "Bisectrix" by Various
Other notable epithalamia, from Edmund Spenser to E. E. Cummings , are just too long and obtuse to do the trick.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 13, 2018
This genre reaches all the way back to ancient Greece, but the most famous epithalamia do not work well at modern weddings.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 13, 2018
Outside the leaves rustled, the birds called and the crickets sang their unending epithalamia of summer nights, and on this tone-background the melody rose tenderly and lingeringly like a haunting perfume of pressed flowers.
From The Valiants of Virginia by Hallie Erminie Rives
Let festive epithalamia resound through these ancient halls!
From The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by Sir W. S. (William Schwenck) Gilbert
She wrote, it is believed, at least nine books of odes, together with epithalamia, epigrams, elegies, and monodies.
From The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces by Joyce Kilmer
From those votaries of Hymen who were honoured with his epithalamiums, he received a small reward.
From The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency by John Trusler
What brick and mortar idylls, what romances au cinquième, what joyous epithalamiums, what gay improvident ménages, what kisses, what laughter, what tears, what lightly-spoken and lightly-broken vows those old walls could have told of!
From In the Days of My Youth by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards
On the other hand, he is entirely original in his epithalamiums, charming descriptions of the felicity of young conjugal life and the sweet blessings of pure love.
From Jewish Literature and Other Essays by Gustav Karpeles
We come now to the three celebrated epithalamiums of Catullus.
From History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Volume I by John Dunlop
Come, let me have the Sea-Fight; I like that better than a thousand of your wanton epithalamiums.
From The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 05 by Sir Walter Scott
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.
