"Strephon" meaning in English

See Strephon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: Strephons [plural]
Etymology: From Ancient Greek στρέφων (stréphōn), the active present participle of Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, to avert”, verb), chiefly from its use as the name of a rustic lover in Sir Philip Sidney's 1593 pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Etymology templates: {{bor|en|grc|στρέφων}} Ancient Greek στρέφων (stréphōn), {{der|en|grc|στρέφω|pos=verb|t=to twist, to avert}} Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, to avert”, verb) Head templates: {{en-proper noun|s}} Strephon (plural Strephons)
  1. (chiefly literary) A male given name from Ancient Greek. Tags: literary
    Sense id: en-Strephon-en-name-wCWXTMUP Categories (other): English given names, English male given names, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 96 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 96 4 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 97 3

Noun

Forms: Strephons [plural]
Etymology: From Ancient Greek στρέφων (stréphōn), the active present participle of Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, to avert”, verb), chiefly from its use as the name of a rustic lover in Sir Philip Sidney's 1593 pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Etymology templates: {{bor|en|grc|στρέφων}} Ancient Greek στρέφων (stréphōn), {{der|en|grc|στρέφω|pos=verb|t=to twist, to avert}} Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, to avert”, verb) Head templates: {{en-noun}} Strephon (plural Strephons)
  1. (chiefly literary) A male lover. Tags: literary Synonyms: lover and Thesaurus:sexual partner
    Sense id: en-Strephon-en-noun-SvZtIrnD

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_text": "From Ancient Greek στρέφων (stréphōn), the active present participle of Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, to avert”, verb), chiefly from its use as the name of a rustic lover in Sir Philip Sidney's 1593 pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.",
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          "text": "To see her from her pillow rise,\nAll reeking in a cloudy steam,\nCrack'd lips, foul teeth, and gummy eyes,",
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          "text": "As when two doves, or two wood-pigeons, or as when Strephon and Phyllis (for that comes nearest to the mark) are retired into some pleasant solitary grove, to enjoy the delightful conversation of Love[…]",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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      ],
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      "links": [
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          "given name"
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        "(chiefly literary) A male given name from Ancient Greek."
      ],
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    }
  ],
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          "ref": "1901, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 87:",
          "text": "All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance \"as if,\" quoth the Colonel, \"the musicians were so many tarantula doctors.\"",
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          "ref": "2002 April 14, Sharon Elizabeth Doyle et al., “Death of a Doxy”, in Nero Wolfe:",
          "text": "Nero Wolfe: You know, of course, that Orrie Cather is in custody. What you don't know is that he was on intimate terms with Miss Kerr for about a year and she told him many things about you, her provider. Naturally, she told you nothing of him, her Strephon.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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        "A male lover."
      ],
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        "(chiefly literary) A male given name from Ancient Greek."
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        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              101,
              109
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1901, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 87:",
          "text": "All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance \"as if,\" quoth the Colonel, \"the musicians were so many tarantula doctors.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              249,
              257
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2002 April 14, Sharon Elizabeth Doyle et al., “Death of a Doxy”, in Nero Wolfe:",
          "text": "Nero Wolfe: You know, of course, that Orrie Cather is in custody. What you don't know is that he was on intimate terms with Miss Kerr for about a year and she told him many things about you, her provider. Naturally, she told you nothing of him, her Strephon.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "(chiefly literary) A male lover."
      ],
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      ]
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    }
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}

Download raw JSONL data for Strephon meaning in English (5.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.