Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Amphitryon's wife, who gave birth to Hercules after being seduced by Zeus.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Greek mythology the mother of Heracles.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Zeus conceived Hercules by Alcmene to serve as a protector of mankind and the gods.

    Dr. Gary Trosclair: Work Life Balance: A Jungian Perspective 2010

  • This was true for Heracles, known as Hercules in Western cultures, son of the god Zeus and the human Alcmene, who also conceived Iphicles, a twin for Heracles, with her mortal husband, Amphitryon.

    Chicken Soup for the Soul: Twins and More Jack Canfield 2009

  • This was true for Heracles, known as Hercules in Western cultures, son of the god Zeus and the human Alcmene, who also conceived Iphicles, a twin for Heracles, with her mortal husband, Amphitryon.

    Chicken Soup for the Soul: Twins and More Jack Canfield 2009

  • That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction — not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth.

    Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica 2007

  • The playwright also makes Alcmene a more vigorous, if sinister, presence: in this version, it is she who has Eurystheus killed, in flagrant violation of Athens's rules for the treatment of prisoners of war.

    The Bad Boy of Athens Mendelsohn, Daniel 2003

  • Among them are the love-mad queen Phaedra, whose unrequited lust leads her to suicide and murder (the subject of not one but two Hippolytus plays by the poet, one now lost); the distraught erotomane widow Evadne in Suppliant Women, who incinerates herself on her dead husband's grave; the ruthless granny Alcmene in Children of Herakles, who violently avenges herself on her male enemies; and the wild-eyed Cassandra in Trojan Women.

    The Bad Boy of Athens Mendelsohn, Daniel 2003

  • Now the Dionysos who is said to have been born of Semele the daughter of Cadmos, was born about sixteen hundred years before my time, and Heracles who was the son of Alcmene, about nine hundred years, and that Pan who was born of Penelope, for of her and of

    The History of Herodotus Herodotus 2003

  • One of the reasons that the actions of Euripides 'Macaria and Alcmene are so striking is that they're the only actions by females in a play otherwise wholly devoted to masculine concerns: the governance of the free state, extradition issues, war.

    The Bad Boy of Athens Mendelsohn, Daniel 2003

  • Egyptians, — that is to say those of the Hellenes who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon, — of that, I say, besides many other evidences there is chiefly this, namely that the parents of this Heracles, Amphitryon and Alcmene, were both of

    The History of Herodotus Herodotus 2003

  • Only the Athenians agree to give them shelter and, more, to defend them; they defeat the Argive army in a great battle during which Eurystheus is killed — after which his severed head is brought back to Herakles 'mother, Alcmene, who gouges his eyes out with dress pins.

    The Bad Boy of Athens Mendelsohn, Daniel 2003

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