Orpheus

American  

[awr-fee-uhs, -fyoos] / ˈɔr fi əs, -fyus /

noun

1. Greek Legend. a poet and musician, a son of Calliope, who followed his dead wife, Eurydice, to the underworld. By charming Hades, he obtained permission to lead her away, provided he did not look back at her until they returned to earth. But at the last moment he looked, and she was lost to him forever.

2. (italics) a ballet (1947) with music by Stravinsky and choreography by Balanchine.

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Orpheus British  

/ ˈɔːfɪəs, -fjuːs /

noun

1. Greek myth a poet and lyre-player credited with the authorship of the poems forming the basis of Orphism. He married Eurydice and sought her in Hades after her death. He failed to win her back and was killed by a band of bacchantes

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Other Word Forms

• Orphean adjective

Example Sentences

The opera offers a modern twist on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Diego seeks to summon his late wife on Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 19, 2026

There’s dread in the hoodoo mysticism that blues voices like Sammie’s have — voices with the power, like Orpheus, to unite the living and the dead.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2025

Like Icarus soaring toward the heavens, like Orpheus sneaking a peek over his shoulder, so too did the Hawk Tuah Girl test the Gods of the Zynternet with her own hubris by launching a cryptocurrency.

From Slate • Dec. 20, 2024

Gluck’s version of the Orpheus story was commissioned for a celebration of the Hapsburg emperor Francis I in 1762.

From New York Times • May 24, 2024

If Orpheus had not been there the Argonauts, too, would have left their bones on the Sirens’ island.

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