Atreides

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A male descendant of Atreus in Greek mythology, such as Agamemnon or Menelaus ; the noble ruling family at the center of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune
2. Used for the sons of Atreus in Greek legend, like Agamemnon and Menelaus ; the aristocratic dynasty whose fall drives the plot of Frank Herbert's Dune
3. A patronymic for the offspring of Atreus in ancient myth ; the fictional noble house led by Duke Leto in the Dune novels by Frank Herbert

Etymology: Atreides is the name of the fictional noble house at the centre of Frank Herbert's novel "Dune" (1965), and it is borrowed from a real one: the House of Atreus in Greek myth. Herbert took the name from the Greek "Atreus", the king of Mycenae whose quarrel with his brother Thyestes drove a cycle of murder and revenge through the family, and whose sons were called the Atreidai, "sons of Atreus". The Greek suffix "-idēs" means "son of", so Atreides is a patronymic in the same pattern as "Pelides" (son of Peleus). Herbert gave the name a deliberate echo of that doomed line. The Atreides family in "Dune" likewise faces betrayal and ruin, and the choice signals to readers familiar with the classics that the house is tragic from the start. The name is not a word with a long English history; it is a proper noun coined in the twentieth century, borrowed for its associations with Greek tragedy.