Myth & LegendGreek → English
Maenad
/ˈmiːnæd/noun
A female follower of Dionysus, seized by ecstatic frenzy.
The Greek roots
μαινάς
mainás
raving woman
Literally: “the raving one”
Follow a root:μαινάς1 word
The story of the word
μαινάς means the raving one, from μαίνομαι, to be out of one's mind, which is also the verb behind mania. Euripides' Bacchae shows what maenads were imagined to do at the height of it, tearing a living animal apart with bare hands and, at the end, a man. Vase painters were gentler and mostly show them dancing with a thyrsus and a fawnskin, snakes in the hair.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
maniamaniackleptomaniamegalomania
In a sentence
The frieze shows a maenad mid-turn, head thrown back.
Pentheus goes to spy on the maenads and does not come back.