Word.ws English Dictionary

Atalanta

Atalanta proper noun: a huntress and heroine in Greek mythology, renowned for her great speed and strength; depending on the version of the myth, either the daughter of Iasus (a prince of Arcadia) by Clymene or of King Schoeneus of Boeotia.

atalanta: a huntress and heroine in Greek mythology, renowned for her great speed and strength; depending on...
Image: Giuseppe Guida, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Atalanta

  1. (Greek) A huntress and heroine in Greek mythology, renowned for her great speed and strength; depending on the version of the myth, either the daughter of Iasus (a prince of Arcadia) by Clymene or of King Schoeneus of Boeotia.
    • It is the Arcadian Atalanta, the daughter of Iasus and Clymene, who is primarily known from the tales of the Calydonian boar hunt and the Argonauts. The Boeotian version of Atalanta is the daughter of King Schoeneus and is primarily noted for her skill in the footrace. In both versions of the myth...
    • Abandoned at birth by her parents, Iasus and Clymene, Atalanta was raised by bears and later rescued by a hunter who taught her the ways of mortals. When Atalanta found fame as a runner and marksman, her parents reclaimed her.2001, Suzanne I. Barchers, From Atalanta to Zeus, Greenwood Publishing Group (Teacher Ideas Press), page 17
  2. The main belt asteroid 36 Atalante.

Origin of Atalanta

Learned borrowing from Latin Atalanta, from Ancient Greek Ἀταλάντη (Atalántē, “balanced”), from ἀ- (a-, “used to express unity”) + τάλαντον (tálanton, “balanced”).

Words formed from Atalanta

  • Vanessa atalanta

Questions about Atalanta

What does Atalanta mean?
Atalanta means a huntress and heroine in Greek mythology, renowned for her great speed and strength; depending on the version of the myth, either the daughter of Iasus (a prince of Arcadia) by Clymene or of King Schoeneus of Boeotia.
What part of speech is Atalanta?
Atalanta is a proper noun.

Words near Atalanta in the dictionary

  1. atajos
  2. Atakapa
  3. Atakapas
  4. Atakpamé
  5. Atal
  6. Atalanta
  7. Atalante
  8. Atalanti
  9. Atalianis
  10. Atalina
  11. atall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Atalanta (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Atalanta.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/atalanta. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.