Kyklops

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A one-eyed giant of Greek mythology, such as the monstrous figures Odysseus encountered ; a tiny freshwater copepod crustacean belonging to the genus Cyclops
2. A huge single-eyed monster from ancient Greek legend ; a minute aquatic crustacean of the genus Cyclops found in ponds and lakes
3. In Greek myth, a giant with one round eye in the middle of its forehead ; a microscopic freshwater copepod named after those mythical beings

Etymology: The Greek name for the one-eyed giants of myth was built from two plain words: "kyklos", meaning circle or wheel, and "ops", meaning eye or face. The Cyclopes were thus "round-eyed" creatures, though the name describes their single eye as a round disc rather than the shape of their whole face. In Homer's "Odyssey", the giant Polyphemus is the most famous of them, blinded by Odysseus after he traps the hero's crew in his cave. The Greek form passed into Latin as "cyclops", and English borrowed it from Latin, so the word arrived in English already carrying its literal meaning intact. The spelling "kyklops", with a "k", is an older-style transliteration of the Greek letter kappa, which is why the form appears as an alternative today. Biologists later reused the name for a genus of tiny freshwater crustaceans, the copepods, whose single central eye suggested the mythical giant. That sense was taken over from a scientific name built on the same Greek myth, rather than from the Greek word itself.

Synonyms: cyclops