Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The typical genus of the family Opheliidæ.

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

  • proper noun A female given name.
  • proper noun A moon of Uranus, named after the character in Hamlet.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian Ofelia, coined by the poet Jacopo Sannazzaro in his poem Arcadia (1504), presumably from Ancient Greek ὄφελος (óphelos, "help"). Used by Shakespeare for the ill-fated bride of Hamlet.

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Examples

  • J.ff J. Mitchell/Getty Images OPHELIA DROWNING: Helen Morton, of the Three Bugs Fringe Theatre company, performed Ophelia drowning in the Apex Hotel swimming pool during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Tuesday.

    Today’s Photos: Aug. 11 2009

  • The name Ophelia comes from the Greek and means "help" or "succor."

    Merced Sun-Star: front 2009

  • Mary Pipher's best selling novel Reviving Ophelia is now a Lifetime movie.

    Jackie K. Cooper: Reviving Ophelia Tackles the Issue of Physical Abuse In Teenage Relationships Jackie K. Cooper 2010

  • I'm looking for that good old boy they calls Ophelia's Darling.

    Eddie's Story TimChambers 2011

  • Mary Pipher's best selling novel Reviving Ophelia is now a Lifetime movie.

    Jackie K. Cooper: Reviving Ophelia Tackles the Issue of Physical Abuse In Teenage Relationships Jackie K. Cooper 2010

  • I'm looking for that good old boy they calls Ophelia's Darling.

    Eddie's Story TimChambers 2011

  • At the same time, one can never quite "lose" oneself in Ophelia's narrative.

    Experimental Fiction 2010

  • Ophelia is an orphan girl who grows up under the guidance of her aunt in a forest cottage on the

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

  • Unlike her aunt, who uses all her powers of persuasion to entreat the disguised man to let go of her niece, Ophelia is so paralyzed by the first overwhelming emotions of her life — terror, fear and grief — that she "had not Power to speak," and became "almost senseless"

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

  • Overwhelmed with the novelty of new emotions, not having yet learnt to balance the affective and the symbolic, Ophelia is paralyzed — literally immobilized by her illness, which thus constitutes both the means and the limit of her protest.

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

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