Word.ws English Dictionary

Proserpina

/prəʊˈsɜːpɪnə/US/proʊˈsɝpɪnə/

Proserpina proper noun: the goddess of springtime, queen of the underworld and the wife of Pluto; the Roman equivalent of Persephone.

Proper noun

Proserpina

  1. (Roman) The goddess of springtime, queen of the underworld and the wife of Pluto; the Roman equivalent of Persephone.
    • Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath; / For these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death.1866, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Hymn to Proserpine”, in Poems and Ballads, London: J. C. Hotten, page 84
  2. 26 Proserpina, a main-belt asteroid.
    Synonyms:
    26 Proserpina, ㉖, ⯘
  3. A fictitious planet beyond Pluto.

Synonyms of Proserpina

  • 26 Proserpina
  • ㉖
  • ⯘

Origin of Proserpina

From Latin Prōserpina from Ancient Greek Περσεφόνη (Persephónē) by metathesis perhaps first in Magna Graecia via a Sicilian Doric Greek Προσερπίνα (Proserpína) or Ionic Greek Προσερπίνη (Proserpínē), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pers-o- (“sheaf of corn, grain, seed”) and *gʷʰn̥-t- (“to strike”), meaning 'grain-thresher' or 'She-who-threshes-the-grain'.

Questions about Proserpina

What does Proserpina mean?
Proserpina means the goddess of springtime, queen of the underworld and the wife of Pluto; the Roman equivalent of Persephone.
What part of speech is Proserpina?
Proserpina is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Proserpina?
Proserpina is pronounced /prəʊˈsɜːpɪnə/ (UK).

Words near Proserpina in the dictionary

  1. prosequence
  2. prosequences
  3. proser
  4. proseriate
  5. proseriates
  6. Proserpina
  7. Proserpine
  8. proserpinid
  9. proserpinids
  10. prosers
  11. proses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Proserpina (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)-Eleanorrrrrrrrrr-Proserpina.wav.

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