Pierides

American  

[pahy-er-i-deez] / paɪˈɛr ɪˌdiz /

plural noun

Classical Mythology.

1. the Muses.

2. nine Thessalian maidens who challenged the Muses to a singing contest, lost, and were changed into magpies for insulting the victors.

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Pierides British  

/ paɪˈɪərɪˌdiːz /

plural noun

1. the Muses See Muse

2. nine maidens of Thessaly, who were defeated in a singing contest by the Muses and turned into magpies for their effrontery

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Pierides

Here be shadows large and long; Here be spaces meet for song; Grant, O garden-god, that I, Now that none profane is nigh,— Now that mood and moment please, Find the fair Pierides!

From The Home Book of Verse — Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson

The Pierides were signally defeated, and were transformed by the Muses into singing birds, as a punishment for having dared to challenge comparison with the immortals.

From Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E.M. Berens

"Thy singer has learned his art from a teacher heavenlier than the Pierides, and its name is Hope."

From Pausanias, the Spartan The Haunted and the Haunters, an Unfinished Historical Romance by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton

Here be shadows large and long; Here be spaces meet for song; Grant, O garden-god, that I, Now that none profane is nigh,— Now that mood and moment please,— Find the fair Pierides!

From Bulchevy's Book of English Verse by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

I remember that, in "The Pursuits of Literature,"—a satirical poem once universally famous,—the lines about Mnemosyne and her daughters, the Pierides, are cited as exhibiting matchless sublimity.

From Autobiographical Sketches by Thomas De Quincey