Menelaus

American  

[men-l-ey-uhs] / ˌmɛn lˈeɪ əs /

noun

1. Classical Mythology. a king of Sparta, the husband of Helen and brother of Agamemnon, to whom he appealed for an army against Troy in order to recover Helen from her abductor, Paris.

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Menelaus British  

/ ˌmɛnɪˈleɪəs /

noun

1. Greek myth a king of Sparta and the brother of Agamemnon. He was the husband of Helen, whose abduction led to the Trojan War

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Example Sentences

In the minute-long teaser, Scott’s unnamed character appears to be holding court in a dimly lit hall with Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus and Tom Holland’s Telemachus among his audience.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 26, 2026

The father’s subsequent confrontation with Menelaus is so stilted and jumbled that it nearly derails the play.

From New York Times • Aug. 25, 2022

When the woman is a powerful man’s wife — Helen was married to King Menelaus of Sparta — the effort to retrieve her can hardly help escalating to armed conflict.

From Washington Post • Oct. 28, 2021

As Whishaw spins out modern-ancient parallels, including a comparison of Arthur Miller to Menelaus, he strips down and changes into drag, eventually assuming Monroe’s look in “The Seven Year Itch.”

From The New Yorker • May 20, 2019

The two sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek forces at Troy, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen, ended their lives very differently.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton