Definitions

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

  • noun Greek Mythology The daughter of Aeolus who, in grief over the death of her husband Ceyx, threw herself into the sea and was changed into a kingfisher.
  • noun Greek Mythology A nymph, one of the Pleiades.
  • noun Astronomy The brightest star in the Pleiades.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A greenish star of magnitude 3.0, the brightest of the Pleiades, η Tauri. See cut under Pleiades.
  • noun In ornithology, a genus of kingfishers, of the family Alcedinidæ, subfamily Daceloninæ, related to the genus Ceyx, both being distinguished by the rudimentary condition of the inner front toe. Also written Halcyone.

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

  • proper noun Greek mythology One of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas and Pleione.
  • proper noun Greek mythology Daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx.
  • proper noun astronomy One of the stars of the Pleiades star cluster, named after the mythical character.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Greek mythology) a woman who was turned into a kingfisher

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, from Greek Alkuonē, from alkuōn, kingfisher.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin Alcyone, from Ancient Greek Ἀλκυόνη (Alkuonē).

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