Silenus
Americannoun
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Sileni
plural
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a forest spirit, sometimes referred to as the oldest of the satyrs and the foster father, teacher, and companion of Dionysus: often represented as a bearded old man.
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(lowercase) any of a group of forest spirits similar to satyrs: often represented as a drunken old man with the legs and ears of a horse.
noun
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chief of the satyrs and foster father to Dionysus: often depicted riding drunkenly on a donkey
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(often not capital) one of a class of woodland deities, closely similar to the satyrs
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Example Sentences
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Also in the exhibit is a decoration from a temple rain-gutter depicting a bearded Silenus, a mythological creature associated with Dionysus, the wine god.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
Silenus, a companion of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, sprawls across the canvas with a brightly lit, barrel-like belly and a cup raised for a refill.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2019
“Metamorphoses” also inspired an intriguing pair of panels devoted to the hapless drunkard Silenus and another about Prometheus and the creation of man.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 29, 2015
The gadroons on the underside look very Iranian but the grinning bearded Silenus mask that takes the place of the boss in comparable Iranian pieces is strictly Greek.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2011
We landed in the middle of the cabin area and were immediately met by Chiron, the potbellied satyr Silenus, and a couple of Apollo cabin archers.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
The nymphs, shepherds and Sileni who decorate the big classical landscapes of his middle years are inert and stereotyped.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Sileni were creatures part man and part horse.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Do you remember the ambush of the Sileni?
From The Tarn of Eternity by Frank Tymon
And after them came two Sileni in purple cloaks and white fringes to them.
From The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athen?us by Athen?us
I cannot give a more just idea of the two books of satires made by Horace than by comparing them to the statues of the Sileni, to which Alcibiades compares Socrates in the Symposium.
From Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry by John Dryden
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
