Myth & LegendGreek → English
Phaedra
/ˈfiːdrə/proper noun
A woman's name, borne in myth by the wife of Theseus who fell in love with her stepson.
The Greek roots
φαιδρός
phaidrós
bright, beaming, cheerful
Literally: “the bright one”
Follow a root:φαιδρός1 word
The story of the word
Φαίδρα means bright or beaming, from φαιδρός, a word used of a shining face or a cheerful mood. The name went to the daughter of Minos who married Theseus, desired his son Hippolytus, and destroyed them both with a lie. Euripides wrote the story twice; the second version, of 428 BC, is the one that survived, and Racine's Phèdre of 1677 kept the name working in European theatre.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
PhaedrusPhaedo
In a sentence
She named her daughter Phaedra without checking the play first.
The Phaedra of that production never raised her voice, which made the last act worse.