Nephthys

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An ancient Egyptian goddess, sister of Isis and Osiris, who guarded the dead and helped protect the dead in the afterlife
2. The Egyptian deity sister of Isis and Osiris, a protector of the deceased and a companion of the dead in the underworld
3. A goddess of ancient Egyptian mythology, the sister of Isis and Osiris, associated with mourning, funerary rites and guarding the dead

Etymology: Nephthys was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, and her name is the Greek form of an Egyptian phrase, "nbt-ḥwt," meaning "lady of the house." The Greeks rendered the Egyptian name as "Néphthus," and English took the word from that Greek form. The name fits her role: she was the sister of Isis and Osiris, and she helped mourn and protect the dead, so the "house" in the name is most plausibly the household or temple in which her funerary duties were carried out. Because the English word came through Greek rather than directly from Egyptian, its spelling and sound reflect Greek habits, not the original Egyptian pronunciation, which scholars can reconstruct only approximately.