Hippocrene

American  

[hip-uh-kreen, hip-uh-kree-nee] / ˈhɪp əˌkrin, ˌhɪp əˈkri ni /

noun

1. a spring on Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses and regarded as a source of poetic inspiration.

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Hippocrene British  

/ ˈhɪpəʊˌkriːn, ˌhɪpəʊˈkriːnɪ /

noun

1. a spring on Mount Helicon in Greece, said to engender poetic inspiration

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Other Word Forms

• Hippocrenian adjective

Etymology

Origin of Hippocrene

C17: via Latin from Greek hippos horse + krēnē spring

Example Sentences

The spring beloved of poets, Hippocrene, on Helicon, the Muses’ mountain, had sprung up where his hoof had struck the earth.

From Literature

It might throw in some trivia—that when Keats dreamed of the “true, the blushful Hippocrene,/ with beaded bubbles winking at the brim,” he may have been alluding to hippocras, one of sangria’s ancestors; that Jane Austen’s heroines drank a version of sangria at their dance parties; that sangria might have arrived in the United States with the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.

From Slate

In classical legend, Hippocrene, the fountain on Mount Helicon created by Pegasus's hoof, is sacred to the Muses and inspires whoever drinks from it.

From The Guardian

Hard by were the famous fountains, Aganippe and Hippocrene, the latter fabled to have gushed from the earth at the tread of the winged horse Pegasus, whose favourite browsing place was there.

From Project Gutenberg

The same story accounts for the Hippocrene in Troezen and the spring Peirene at Corinth.

From Project Gutenberg