Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A youth between 18 and 20 years of age in ancient Greece.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In Greek antiquity, particularly at Athens, a young man, the son of a citizen, between the ages of 18 and 20.
- noun A genus of lichens having the thallus small and branched and composed chiefly of the algal element. The apothecia are small and round. The species are few and occur on wet rocks and earth.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A young man, especially an 18-20 year old in ancient Greece undergoing
military training .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The violence which existed as a latent background in the story of the ephebe and of the bear now moves into full sight.
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Matt Gubler, the bright-eyed ephebe in Wes Anderson's upcoming film, was performing magic tricks.
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His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe.
Ulysses 2003
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Platonic ephebe and a Byronic 'Prisoner of Chillon', each blinded by the light of truth or of freedom.
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Let us not hesitate to admit that my eminent friend omitted to give us the name of this ephebe in the course of his demonstrations.
The Captive 2003
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He was Carl Schirmer, the avatar of ennui, the eternal ephebe, always more eager for ambience than destiny.
In Other Worlds Attanasio, A. A. 1984
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His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe.
Ulysses James Joyce 1911
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Created about 20-10 B.C., the Roman bronze figure of an ephebe (youth) was excavated in 1925 in a well-appointed residence, now called the House of the Ephebe, off Pompeii's Via dell'Abbondanza.
Art Knowledge News 2009
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Created about 20-10 B.C., the Roman bronze figure of an ephebe (youth) was excavated in 1925 in a well-appointed residence, now called the House of the Ephebe, off Pompeii's Via dell'Abbondanza.
Art Knowledge News 2009
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He moved to Athens when he was 18 to fulfill his required military service as an ephebe, but left again shortly thereafter when his parents wer expelled from Samos, along with the other Athenians, when Athens lost the island to Colophon for a time and continued to study philosophy and began to attract disciples.
Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2008
mollusque commented on the word ephebe
I felt lacquered from head to foot, like that naked ephebe, the bright clou of a pagan procession, who died of dermal asphyxia in his coat of golden varnish.
--Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins! p. 206
June 13, 2009