Word.ws English Dictionary

myrrha

myrrha noun: myrrh.

Noun

myrrha (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) myrrh

Proper noun capitalized: Myrrha

Myrrha

  1. (Greek) The daughter of Cinyras, king of Cyprus, who tricks her father into having sexual intercourse with her and escapes the king's wrath by being transformed into a myrrh tree, later giving birth to Adonis.
    • Byblis lies motionless in mute desperation and her transformation is told only briefly, whereas Myrrha herself asks for her metamorphosis, gives a speech (10.483-7), and Ovid leads us step by step through her transformation (10.489-502).1975, Karl Galinsky, Ovid's Metamorphoses: An Introduction to the Basic Aspects, page 89
    • The resemblance between this Myrrhina and the Myrrha who seduces her father is all the greater in that in one of the versions of the myth of Adonis, his mother is transformed by metamorphosis into not a myrrh tree but a sprig of myrtle.1977, Marcel Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, page 63
    Synonyms:
    Smyrna

Synonyms of myrrha

Origin of myrrha

From Latin Myrrha, from Ancient Greek Μύρρα (Múrrha).

Questions about myrrha

What does myrrha mean?
Myrrha means myrrh.
What part of speech is myrrha?
Myrrha can be a noun or a proper noun.

Words near myrrha in the dictionary

  1. myrothenone
  2. myrothenones
  3. Myrotvorets
  4. myrrh
  5. myrrh-bearing
  6. myrrha
  7. myrrhbearer
  8. myrrhbearers
  9. myrrhbearing
  10. myrrhe
  11. myrrhed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: myrrha (page history and authors); Myrrha (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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