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2022: Creating a Lexicon of Future
Z is for Zephyr
The noun zephyr “west wind, the west wind personified, the god of the west wind” comes from Latin Zephyrus, a borrowing of Greek Zéphyros “(any) westerly wind, the west wind.”
The definition of a zephyr is a soft breeze, the west wind or a lightweight article of clothing.
Zephyrus/West Wind. In ancient Greek religion and myth, the Anemoi were wind gods who were each ascribed a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came, and were each associated with various seasons and weather conditions. They were the progeny of Eos and Astraeus or, Thyphoeus.
The Anemoi are minor gods and are subject to the god Aeolus. They were sometimes represented as gusts of wind, and at other times were personified as winged men.
They were also sometimes depicted as horses kept in the stables of the storm god Aeolus, who provided Odysseus with the Anemoi in the Odyssey. The Spartans were reported to sacrifice a horse to the winds on Mount Taygetus.
Astraeus, the astrological deity, and Eos / Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, were the parents of the Anemoi, according to the Greek poet Hesiod.Of the four chief Anemoi, Boreas was the north wind and bringer of cold winter air, Zephyrus was the west wind and bringer of light spring and early-summer breezes, and Notus was the south wind and bringer of the storms of late summer and autumn, Eurus, the southeast wind, was not associated with any of the three Greek seasons, and is the only one of these four Anemoi not mentioned in Hesiod’s. ~ Art History
