katabasis

Noun

katabasis (countable and uncountable, plural katabases)

1. A mytheme or trope in which the hero embarks on a journey to the underworld.
   • The ancient Greeks and the peoples of remote antiquity already knew of journeys of the soul, but these were often journeys to the infernal regions, descents into hell, catabases, with obstacles, such as encounters with various monsters, menaces of all sorts, the crossing of the bridge of the dead...1923, Georges Berguer, translated by E. S. Brooks and Van Wyck Brooks, Some aspects of the life of Jesus from the psychological and psycho-analytic point of view, page 58
   • The logic of the underworld is most on show in the Phaedra and the Hercules [of Seneca], which feature the returns of Theseus and Hercules from their katabases.2009, James Ker, The Deaths of Seneca, page 136
2. (broadly, humorous) Any journey downwards or fall.
   • How did the man in the moon come down? The distance between the earth and moon is by no means inconsiderable, and other obstacles “too tedious to mention,” lie in the way of this famous Catabasis, which his lunar majesty is declared to have performed.1842 February, “The Man in the Moon”, in Yale Literary Magazine, volume 7, number 4, page 205
   • “Unconscious of the danger she descended,
     When the defendant's negligent conductor,
     Ere her catabasis was fully ended,
     Started the car,—the nail held fast and chucked her
     Heels over head and calling on her gods,
     On the hard road, and yanked her several rods.1896, Benjamin F. Burnham, “§ 772. Dana on the Crinoline Case”, in Leading in Law and Curious in Court, page 621
3. A retreat, especially a military one.
   • 2dly, That of a great military expedition, offering the same romantic features[…]which mark[…]the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon.1837, Thomas de Quincey, “Revolt of the Tartars”, in Collected Writings, volume 7, published 1890, page 369
   • Mr. Elton had, like the king celebrated in nursery tale, only gone up-hill to come back again. He had travelled over seven hundred miles by straight road to within seven of Monterey, only to turn round and retrace his steps! The most amusing part of the Katabasis was that the townspeople, knowing...1868, J. P. Elton, “With the French in Mexico”, in New Monthly Magazine, volume 142, page 123

   Antonyms:

   anabasis

4. A journey from the interior of a country to the coast.
   • As the French Tenth Army shattered like the porcelain shell of a Faberge egg, British and Polish expeditionary forces that had supported the French hastily withdrew toward the Channel coast—technically it was a katabasis, the opposite of the ancient military term anabasis, which meant a march to...2008, The Building: A Biography of the Pentagon, page 56
   • So the core of the work is really a katabasis, detailing the heroic slog through the cold and snows of upper Iraq, Kurdistan, and Armenia to the safety of the Black Sea, ending with a parabasis, along the southern coast of the sea back toward Byzantium and Europe.2010, Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern, page 65
5. (rare) The presence of downward (drainage or katabatic) winds.
   • Sasttrugi permit the identification of regions of developed katabasis and their direction, and therefore the general relief features in certain Antarctic regions.1967, Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports, page 1868
   • In the forward part of the cyclone, drainage katabasis is checked; but its highest intensity is observed in the rear part of the cyclone.1960, N. P. Rusin, “The Radiation Balance of the Snow Surface of Antarctica”, in OG Krichak, editor, Scientific Conference on Problems of Meteorology of the Antarctic (Abstracts of Reports)(USSR)....