Ulysses

American  

[yoo-lis-eez] / yuˈlɪs iz /

noun

1. Classical Mythology. Latin name for Odysseus.

2. (italics) a psychological novel (1922) by James Joyce.

3. a male given name.

---

Ulysses British  

/ ˈjuːlɪˌsiːz, juːˈlɪsiːz /

noun

1. the Latin name of Odysseus

---

Ulysses Cultural  

1. The Roman name of the Greek hero Odysseus.

---

Discover More

The Irish author James Joyce adopted the name for the title of his masterpiece of the early twentieth century, which is, in part, a retelling of the myth of Odysseus.

In the Aeneid of Virgil, which was written in Latin, Odysseus is called Ulysses.

Example Sentences

In the 19th century, Americans frequently elected victorious generals—Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Zachary Taylor—as president.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 1, 2026

“In 1867, Charles Dickens came over to Boston and that’s when he read his ‘Christmas Carol’ for the first time in America,” spurring President Ulysses S. Grant to declare Christmas a federal holiday, Belanger said.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 25, 2025

The Ulysses mission, launched in 1990, was the first spacecraft to leave the ecliptic plane and sample the solar wind over the poles.

From Science Daily • Oct. 14, 2025

James Joyce’s "Ulysses" rained em dashes on winding sentences that he had already stripped of quotation marks, resulting in prose so unruly that numerous reading groups are devoted specifically to parsing it.

From Salon • Jun. 11, 2025

She put Ulysses down on her bed, and he looked even smaller sitting there in the bright overhead light.

From "Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures" by Kate DiCamillo