Odysseus

American  

[oh-dis-ee-uhs, oh-dis-yoos] / oʊˈdɪs i əs, oʊˈdɪs yus /

noun

Classical Mythology.

1. king of Ithaca; son of Laertes; one of the heroes of the Iliad and protagonist of the Odyssey: shrewdest of the Greek leaders in the Trojan War.

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Odysseus British  

/ əˈdiːsɪəs /

noun

1. Roman name: Ulysses.  Greek myth one of the foremost of the Greek heroes at the siege of Troy, noted for his courage and ingenuity. His return to his kingdom of Ithaca was fraught with adventures in which he lost all his companions and he was acknowledged by his wife Penelope only after killing her suitors

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Odysseus Cultural  

1. A Greek hero in the Trojan War (see also Trojan War). Odysseus helped bring about the fall of Troy by conceiving the ruse of the Trojan horse. After Troy was ruined, Odysseus wandered for ten years trying to return home, having many adventures along the way. (See Circe, Cyclops, Penelope, Scylla and Charybdis, and Sirens.)

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Discover More

The story of Odysseus' journey home is told in the Odyssey of Homer. By extension, an “odyssey” is any long or difficult journey or transformation.

Example Sentences

Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, and the film is expected to dominate box-office sales and water-cooler conversations.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 6, 2026

Intuitive Machines first made headlines sending two lunar landers to the moon, Odysseus and Athena.

From Barron's • May 14, 2026

"Help me go home," viewers hear Odysseus plead, after having first found the King of Ithaca washed up on a far away sea shore.

From BBC • May 5, 2026

Intuitive Machines declared Odysseus dead a few weeks later.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 31, 2026

Because of the wicked way they had treated Cassandra, Athena had been angry at all the Greeks indiscriminately, but before that, during the Trojan War, she had especially favored Odysseus.

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