Dictionary

Cynthia en · PROPN

Pronunciation

• sĭnʹthē-ə
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsɪn.θi.ə/

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Cynthia, from Ancient Greek Κυνθία (Kunthía), feminine of Κύνθιος (Kúnthios, “Cynthian (of or pertaining to Mount Cynthus, a mountain of Delos, celebrated as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis)”).

Meanings

1. Artemis (Greek goddess).
2. (literary) The Moon.
   • [...] Cynthia's shining orb was made / Heav'n to clear when day did close [...]. 1601, Ben Jonson, Hymn to Diana:
   • As when faire Cynthia, in darkesome night, / Is in a noyous cloud enveloped [...]. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
3. A female given name from Ancient Greek.
   • Her twin daughters were on the playground equipment. Cynthia and Melinda, reduced to Cindy and Mindy, as Carella had dreaded would happen from the moment she named them. 1999, Ed McBain, The Big Bad City, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 139:
   • “Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for poetry, not for daily use.” 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 10, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC:
   • This hierarchisation of deaths has been challenged by gender scholars, with Cynthia Enloe coining the notion of “womenandchildren” in her 1990 text "Bananas, Beaches and Bases" to critique the use of this abstract category. 2021 June 10, Iona Cable, ““Women And Children”: The Role Of Innocence In Human Rights Reporting”, in Human Rights Pulse, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2024:
   • Cynthia, the domestic-minded, looked as dashing as a young commando. It was a pity that her spelling was so bad, but perhaps there was something Elizabethan about her spelling as well as about her name. 1978, Graham Greene, The Human Factor, →ISBN, page 59:

Forms

Relateds

Cynthus · Cynthian

Synonyms

Luna · Selene · Delia

Translations (22)

fa سینتیا (female given name) · ko 신시아 (female given name) · ru Си́нтия (female given name) · hu Cintia (female given name) · ar سِينْثِيَا (female given name) · frm Cynthie (Artemis) · cmn 辛西婭 /辛西娅 (female given name) · hu Szintia (female given name) · la Cynthia (Artemis) · fr Cynthie (female given name) · ja シンシア (female given name) · it Cinzia (female given name) · el Κυνθία (female given name) · az Sintiya (female given name) · bg Си́нтия (female given name) · pl Cyntia (female given name) · uk Сінтія (female given name) · la Cynthia (female given name) · es Cintia (female given name) · fr Cynthia (female given name) · pt Cíntia (female given name) · lv Sintija (female given name)