Dictionary

Cocytus en · PROPN

Pronunciation

• /koʊˈkaɪtəs/
• /koʊˈsaɪtəs/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin Cōcȳtus, from Ancient Greek Κωκυτός (Kōkutós, literally “lamentation”).

Meanings

1. A river of the underworld in Greek mythology.
   • A bold bad man, that dar'd to call by name / Great Gorgon, prince of darknes and dead night, / At which Cocytus quakes and Styx is put to flight. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 13:
   • All theſe Cocytus bounds vvith ſqualid Reeds, / VVith Muddy Ditches, and vvith deadly VVeeds: […] 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 143, lines 686–687:
   • In fact, the demonic quality of the episode of Ugolino, in the spectacular representation of cannibalism as well as in the veil through which Ugolino’s story is perceived, is the very demonicity of Cocytus at large. 1998, Edoardo Sanguineti, “Canto xxxiii: Count Ugolino [della Gherardesca] and Others”, in Allen Mandelbaum, Anthony Oldcorn, Charles Ross, editors, Inferno: A Canto-by-Canto Commentary (Lectura Dantis; 1), Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 430:
   • Ms. [Carol] Orlock uses her sensuous pictorial imagination to advantage in rendering the chilling underworld landscapes, where we embark as if on an eerie pleasure cruise down the Cocytus. 1987 August 9, Mary Hawthorne, “In Short: Fiction”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 May 2015:
   • By the Stigiall flode, / And the stremes wode / Of Cochitos bottumles well; […] 1523, John Skelton, A ryght delectable tratyse upon a goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 349, lines 1327–1329:

Forms

Coordinates

Styx · Antenora · Acheron · Eridanus · Judecca · Lethe · Caina · Ptolomea · Phlegethon

Deriveds

Cocytian · Cocytean

Translations (12)

grc Κωκυτός (river of the underworld) · fi Kokytos (river of the underworld) · ca Cocit (river of the underworld) · it Cocito (river of the underworld) · ru Коки́тос (river of the underworld) · de Kokytos (river of the underworld) · ru Коци́т (river of the underworld) · pl Kocyt (river of the underworld) · nl Cocytus (river of the underworld) · es Cocito (river of the underworld) · pl Kokytos (river of the underworld) · fr Cocyte (river of the underworld)