Amphinome

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A genus of marine bristle worms, known as fireworms, that have bristles which can cause painful stings ; a woman of Greek myth associated with the sea and the nymphs who inhabit it
2. A group of segmented sea worms covered in stinging bristles that give them the name fireworms ; a mythological figure from ancient Greek legend connected with the ocean and its nymphs
3. Bristly marine worms in the family of fireworms whose hairs can sting the skin ; a character from classical Greek mythology linked to the watery realm of sea nymphs

Etymology: In Greek myth, Amphinome was a sea nymph, one of the Nereids, daughters of the sea god Nereus, and she appears in Hesiod's catalogue of them. Her name is a Greek formation, most likely from "amphi" ("around") plus a root related to "nemein" ("to distribute" or "to dwell"), though the exact sense of the second element is uncertain. Another Amphinomus, a suitor of Penelope in Homer's "Odyssey," is spared by Odysseus during the slaughter in the palace because he is considered decent. The name's modern life, though, belongs to zoology. In 1789 the French naturalist Jean-Guillaume Bruguière used it as a genus name for a group of marine bristle worms, the fireworms, now placed in the family Amphinomidae. He drew on the mythological name in the usual way of naming animal genera, so the worm's name has no direct connection to the nymph beyond that borrowing.