Word.ws English Dictionary

Nessus shirt

Nessus shirt noun: a fatal present or inescapable fate.

Noun

Nessus shirt (plural Nessus shirts)

  1. (figuratively) A fatal present or inescapable fate.
    • No wonder then that, with this age-long suppression (necessary in a sense though it may have been) which marks the Christian dispensation, there should have been associated endless Sickness and Crime and sordid Poverty, the Crucifixion of animals in the name of Science and of human workers in the...1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 189

Forms of Nessus shirt

pluralNessus shirts
alternative formNessus' shirt
alternative formshirt of Nessus

Origin of Nessus shirt

In Greek mythology, a shirt (chiton) soaked with the poisoned blood of the centaur Nessus that killed Heracles upon wearing it.

Questions about Nessus shirt

What does Nessus shirt mean?
Nessus shirt means a fatal present or inescapable fate.
What part of speech is Nessus shirt?
Nessus shirt is a noun.
What is the plural of Nessus shirt?
The plural of Nessus shirt is Nessus shirts.

Words near Nessus shirt in the dictionary

  1. nesslerized
  2. nesslerizes
  3. nesslerizing
  4. nessness
  5. Nessus
  6. Nessus shirt
  7. Nessus sphinx
  8. nest
  9. nest box
  10. nest boxes
  11. nest egg

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Nessus shirt (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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