Hermes

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Greek Mythology The god of commerce, invention, cunning, and theft, who also served as messenger, scribe, and herald for the other gods.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Greek myth, the herald and messenger of the gods, protector of herdsmen, god of science, commerce, invention, and the arts of life, and patron of travelers and rogues, son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Maia, born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. He was the guide (psychopompos) of the shades of the dead to their final abode. In art he is represented as a vigorous youth, beardless after the archaic period, and usually but slightly draped, with caduceus, petasus, and talaria as attributes. The Roman Mercury, a god of much more material and sordid character, became identified with Hermes. See the cut of Hermes of Praxiteles, under Greek, a.
2. n. [lowercase; pl. hermæ (-mē).] In Greek antiquity, a head or bust supported upon a quadrangular base, which corresponds roughly in mass to the absent body, and often bears in front a phallus as an indication of the sex. The bust was often double-faced, as if representing two individuals back to back. These monuments were so called because the god Hermes was frequently so represented. Such statues of him were placed at the doors of houses in Athens, and at the corners of streets, in his character as tutelary divinity of highways and boundaries, in gymnasia, and in other public places. The hermæ were held in great reverence as guarding or symbolizing many of the common interests of life. Compare gaine.
3. n. The Egyptian god Thoth, as identified with the Greek Hermes.

Wiktionary

1. n. Greek mythology The herald and messenger of the gods, and the god of roads, commerce, invention, cunning, and theft.
2. n. astronomy The planet Mercury when observed as an evening star.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Myth.) See mercury.
2. n. (Archæology) Originally, a boundary stone dedicated to Hermes as the god of boundaries, and therefore bearing in some cases a head, or head and shoulders, placed upon a quadrangular pillar whose height is that of the body belonging to the head, sometimes having feet or other parts of the body sculptured upon it. These figures, though often representing Hermes, were used for other divinities, and even, in later times, for portraits of human beings. Called also herma. See Terminal statue, under Terminal.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (Greek mythology) messenger and herald of the gods; god of commerce and cunning and invention and theft; identified with Roman Mercury