Myth & LegendGreek → English
Ulysses
/juːˈlɪsiːz/proper noun
The Latin name for the Greek hero Odysseus, and the usual English form in older literature.
The Greek roots
Ὀδυσσεύς
Odysseús
Odysseus, the hero
Literally: “the man of grudges”
Follow a root:Ὀδυσσεύς1 word
The story of the word
Latin did not take the hero's name from Attic Greek. It came through a western dialect form, Οὐλίξης, in which the d had already turned to l, and Rome wrote it Ulixes. A later spelling with y and a double s made it look more Greek than it was, and that is the shape English inherited. Ulysses and Odysseus are the same man twice over, once by way of Athens and once by way of Sicily.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
Odysseusodyssey
In a sentence
Joyce moved Ulysses to Dublin and gave him a single day to get home.