Word.ws English Dictionary

Hecatoncheires

/ˌhɛkətɒŋˈkaɪɹiːz/

Hecatoncheires noun: three monstrous giants of enormous size and strength, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms, who were offspring of Uranus by Gaia, whom Zeus freed from captivity and who in return aided the Olympians in the Titanomachy.

Noun

Hecatoncheires pl (plural only)

  1. (Greek, plural, plural-only) Three monstrous giants of enormous size and strength, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms, who were offspring of Uranus by Gaia, whom Zeus freed from captivity and who in return aided the Olympians in the Titanomachy.
    • The three Hecatoncheires were named Cottus, Briareus (or Aegaeon) and Gyges (or Gyes).
    • […] nor is it until the poet has related how Zeus set free these Hecatoncheires, by the advice of the Earth, that we are introduced to the battle with the Titans, which has already been some time going on.1840, George Cornewall Lewis (translator), John William Donaldson (translator, later chapters), Karl Otfried Müller, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece: To the Period of Isocrates, Robert...
    Synonyms:
    Centimanes, Hundred-Handers

Synonyms of Hecatoncheires

Origin of Hecatoncheires

From Ancient Greek ἑκᾰτόν (hekătón, “hundred”) + χείρ (kheír, “hand”), compare the adjective ἑκατόγχειρος (hekatónkheiros, “hundred-handed”). The putative *Ἑκατόγχειρες (*Hekatónkheires) is unattested in Hesiod's Theogony, which instead describes the giants with the phrase ἑκατὸν μὲν χεῖρες (hekatòn mèn kheîres).

Questions about Hecatoncheires

What does Hecatoncheires mean?
Hecatoncheires means three monstrous giants of enormous size and strength, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms, who were offspring of Uranus by Gaia, whom Zeus freed from captivity and who in return aided the Olympians in the Titanomachy.
What part of speech is Hecatoncheires?
Hecatoncheires is a noun.
How do you pronounce Hecatoncheires?
Hecatoncheires is pronounced /ˌhɛkətɒŋˈkaɪɹiːz/.

Words near Hecatoncheires in the dictionary

  1. hecatombing
  2. hecatombs
  3. hecatomped
  4. Hecatompedon
  5. Hecatompylus
  6. Hecatoncheires
  7. hecatonicosachora
  8. hecatonicosachoron
  9. hecatonicosachorons
  10. hecatontarchies
  11. hecatontarchy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Hecatoncheires (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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