The Latest Word: Herculean
The latest give-and-take is 1 establish inwards the bottom one-half of the listing of pop words used inwards English. The Merriam-Webster online lexicon places its start appearance inwards 1513, Dictionary.com inwards the 1590's, Oxford dictionary inwards the like shooting fish in a barrel 16th century, acre Collins' (Collins Cobuild) online lexicon shows the popularity of this rarely used give-and-take peaking inwards 1860 at a frequency of 0.3.
Meaning
a) if used amongst a working capital missive of the alphabet missive "h", it refers to Hercules (see the Greek origin department below)
b) "herculean" amongst a lower-case missive of the alphabet is an describing word used to depict something or person of tremendous
- power
- strength
- courage
- determination
- intensity
- effort
- difficulty
Examples
1) a herculean occupation / work
2) a human being of herculean proportions
3) seat herculean endeavor into something
Greek origin
The Romans slightly altered the Greek Heracles (Ηρακλής) to exercise Hercules, their hero as well as god amongst slight adaptations from the master stories they borrowed from Greek mythology. Heracles was born of Alcmene as well as Zeus who, existence his commons self equally always, took on Alcmene's husband's shape as well as seduced Alcmene. Cavorting for the umpteenth time, Zeus managed to brand his wife, Hera, livid exactly instead of becoming the recipient of her wrath, it was misfortunate Heracles who was driven insane past times her 1 fine hateful solar daytime as well as killed his ain married adult woman as well as children. To compensate for this check of madness, he was counseled past times the oracle at Delphi to atone for his sin past times serving King Eurystheus. The latter gave him 10 formidable feats to accomplish, which were completed inwards 10 years, thus manipulated him into performing 2 more. The amount of these twelve feats are known equally the Labors of Heracles / Labors of Hercules as well as it is to a greater extent than oftentimes than non because of their difficulty that the describing word herculean has taken on its meaning.
Synonyms
a) arduous, challenging, demanding, rigorous, exacting, laborious, burdensome
b) enormous, gigantic, heroic, monumental
c) bulky, formidable, handsome, imposing
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