halcyon days
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From Latin Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died in a shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea whereupon the gods transformed them both into halcyon birds (kingfishers). When Alcyone made her nest on the beach, waves threatened to destroy it. Aeolus restrained his winds and made the waves be calm during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the "halcyon days", when storms never occur.
Noun [edit]
- Period of calm during the winter, when storms do not occur.
- (idiomatic) A period of calm, often nostalgic: “halcyon days of yore”, “halcyon days of youth”.
Quotations [edit]
| 1591 | 1880 1891 | 2002 | |||||
| ME « | 15th c. | 16th c. | 17th c. | 18th c. | 19th c. | 20th c. | 21st c. |
- c.1591 -- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1
- Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days, / Since I have entered into these wars.
- c.1880 — Ambrose Bierce, On a Mountain
- And, by the way, during those halcyon days (the halcyon was there, too, chattering above every creek, as he is all over the world) we fought another battle.
- 1891 — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Book XXXIV
- Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
- Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
Translations [edit]
halcyon days
|
|
