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  1. talaria love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Winged sandals such as those worn by Hermes and Iris as represented in Greco-Roman painting and sculpture.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. In classical mythology and archaeology, the sandals, bearing small wings, worn characteristically by Hermes or Mercury and often by Iris and Heos (Dawn), and by other divinities, as Eros and the Furies and Harpies. In late or summary representations of the deity the sandals are sometimes omitted, so that the wings appear as if growing from the ankles, one on each side of the foot. Sometimes, especially in archaic examples, the talaria have the form of a sort of greaves bearing the wings much higher on the leg. They symbolize the faculty of swift and unimpeded passage through space.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The winged sandals worn by Hermes / Mercury

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Class. Myth.) Small wings or winged shoes represented as fastened to the ankles, -- chiefly used as an attribute of Mercury.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a winged sandal (as worn by Hermes in Graeco-Roman art)

Etymologies

  1. From Latin talare (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin tālāria, from neuter pl. of tālāris, of the ankles, from tālus, ankle. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.”

    Walden~ Chapter 10 (historical)

  • “These would have even Hermes trading in his talaria, for a new pair of these golden b-ball style sneaks.”

    RVA Magazine Articles

  • “With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.”

    Walden

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hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. sandal

tags (9)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. who knew
  1. word-of-the-day
  1. wotd
  1. Furies
  1. Heos
  1. Hermes
  1. Iris
  1. Eros
  1. Mercury

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Comments

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  • chained_bear Wow! Just one letter different from a group of diseases caused by protozoans of the genus Plasmodium (phylum Apicomplexa), which are transmitted by mosquitoes. What a difference one letter makes.

    Sounds like a good list idea, actually, but I'm not clever enough to do it! Feb 23, 2007

  • reesetee And don't forget the FTD guy. ;-) Feb 23, 2007

  • fbharjo talariaMercury's winged nikes?? Jan 16, 2007

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‘talaria’ has been looked up 2091 times, loved by 16 people, added to 27 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 7.