Definitions

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

  • noun A cruel king of Corinth condemned forever to roll a huge stone up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again on nearing the top.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Class. Myth.) A king of Corinth, son of Æolus, famed for his cunning. He was killed by Theseus, and in the lower world was condemned by Pluto to roll to the top of a hill a huge stone, which constantly rolled back again, making his task incessant.

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

  • proper noun tragic figure in Greek mythology doomed eternally to roll a boulder up a hill in Tartarus, a part of Hades.

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

  • noun (Greek legend) a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again

Etymologies

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

[Latin Sisyphus, from Greek Sisuphos.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek Σίσυφος.

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Examples

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  • Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. When Death came to fetch him, Sisyphus put him into fetters, so that no one died till Ares came and freed Death, and delivered Sisyphus into his custody. But Sisyphus was not yet at the end of his resources. For before he died he told his wife that when he was gone she was not to offer the usual sacrifice to the dead. So in the under world he complained that his wife was neglecting her duty, and he persuaded Hades to allow him to go back to the upper world and expostulate with her. But when he got back to Corinth he positively refused to return, until forcibly carried off by Hermes. 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

    February 21, 2012