Word.ws English Dictionary

Ixion

/ɪkˈsaɪ.ən

Ixion proper noun: king of Lapiths, who was punished by Zeus for trying to seduce Hera by being bound to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning.

Proper noun

Ixion

  1. (Greek) King of Lapiths, who was punished by Zeus for trying to seduce Hera by being bound to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning.
    • As to fitfulness, I have never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC
    • The complicated conjunction and adverb “ut” also looms. Mr. Butterfield said that it is “the sort of infernal business that would make Sisyphus and Ixion smile kindly on the job satisfaction they got from their daily toil,” referring to figures from classical mythology forced to labor in pain for...2019 November 30, Annalisa Quinn, “Latin Dictionary’s Journey: A to Zythum in 125 Years (and Counting)”, in New York Times
  2. A Kuiper belt object (KBO), 28978 Ixion (provisional designation 2001 KX₇₆), once thought to be a possible dwarf planet.

Origin of Ixion

From Latin Ixīōn, from Ancient Greek Ἰξίων (Ixíōn, literally “strong native”).

Words formed from Ixion

Questions about Ixion

What does Ixion mean?
Ixion means king of Lapiths, who was punished by Zeus for trying to seduce Hera by being bound to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning.
What part of speech is Ixion?
Ixion is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Ixion?
Ixion is pronounced /ɪkˈsaɪ.ən.

Words near Ixion in the dictionary

  1. Ixiama
  2. ixias
  3. Ixil
  4. Ixilan
  5. ixiolite
  6. Ixion
  7. Ixionian
  8. ixionid
  9. ixionids
  10. Ixmiquilpan
  11. ixnay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ixion (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sumxr-Ixion.wav.

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