Circean
Circean adjective: pertaining to Circe, the Greek goddess, who first charmed her victims and then changed them into animals; hence, alluring but dangerous or degrading.
Adjective
Circean (comparative more Circean, superlative most Circean)
- Pertaining to Circe, the Greek goddess, who first charmed her victims and then changed them into animals; hence, alluring but dangerous or degrading.
- 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
- 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
Forms of Circean
| comparative | more Circean |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Circean |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Circaean |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Circæan |
Origin of Circean
From Latin Circaeus + -an. By surface analysis, Circe + -ean.
Words formed from Circean
Questions about Circean
- What does Circean mean?
- Circean means pertaining to Circe, the Greek goddess, who first charmed her victims and then changed them into animals; hence, alluring but dangerous or degrading.
- What part of speech is Circean?
- Circean is an adjective.
Words near Circean in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Circean (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “Circean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/circean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.