empusa

/ɛmˈpjuːsə/

empusa noun: in Ancient Greek mythology, a kind of spectre sent by Hecate to guard roads and devour travellers.

Noun (1)

empusa (plural empusas or empusae)

(Greek) In Ancient Greek mythology, a kind of spectre sent by Hecate to guard roads and devour travellers.
- The Lamiae and Mormolyceia, who assumed the form of handsome women for the purpose of attracting young men, and then sucked their blood like vampyrs and ate their flesh, were reckoned among the Empusae.1858, "Empūsa", entry in William Smith, A Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology, and Geography, John Murray, page 240
- The empusae of Greek mythology demonstrate physical animal traits of the donkey and the female dog in order to emphasize certain negative characteristics associated with these animals in mythology that can also be applied to human beings.2016, Heide Crawford, The Origins of the Literary Vampire, Rowman & Littlefield, page 41

Empusa

(Greek) A monster sent by (and sometimes the progeny of) the goddess Hecate; when imagined as the first or only empusa, or as a species of monster.
- Hobbes compares this hybrid school divinity to Empusa, a female specter in ancient Greek mythology who was supposed to have been sent by the goddess Hecate[…].1999, Douglas M. Jesseph, Squaring the Circle, University of Chicago Press, page 311
- The Empusa was a female vampire from Greek mythology that feasted on the blood of men.2014, Barbara Cox, Scott Forbes, Haunted Homes, Gareth Stevens Publishing, page 20

Empusa (plural Empusas or Empusae or Empusa)

Alternative letter-case form of empusa.
- The Empusa are commanded by Hecate, one of the Greek Moon goddesses.2015, Rachel Alexander, Myths, Symbols and Legends of Solar System Bodies, Springer, page 104

Ancient Greek Ἔμπουσα (Émpousa)

From Ancient Greek Ἔμπουσα (Émpousa, “species of monster of Greek mythology”).

What does empusa mean?: Empusa means in Ancient Greek mythology, a kind of spectre sent by Hecate to guard roads and devour travellers.
What part of speech is empusa?: Empusa can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce empusa?: Empusa is pronounced /ɛmˈpjuːsə/.
What is the plural of empusa?: The plural of empusa is empusas.

Adapted from Wiktionary: empusa (page history and authors); Empusa (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: 2026-09-02

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