Dictionary

Circean en · ADJ

Etymology

From Latin Circaeus + -an. By surface analysis, Circe + -ean.

Meanings

1. Pertaining to Circe, the Greek goddess, who first charmed her victims and then changed them into animals; hence, alluring but dangerous or degrading.
   • Returned to the château just before it got dark, ate cold meats in Mrs Willems's kitchen. Learnt that J. and her Circean caresses were in Brussels on estate business […] 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN:
   • Is it then surprizing […] that an empty mind should be employed only to vary the pleasures, which emasculated her circean court? 1794, Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, II.2:
   • Another set of blinders stems from what might be called the Duessa syndrome: Protestant England associated hypertheatrical women with exotic foreignness, rhetorical display, physical allure, and Circean sexuality. 2016, Robert Henke, Eric Nicholson, Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater, page 130:

Forms

Deriveds

Circean poison

Translations (1)

fr circéen (Translations)