Tereus

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A king of Thrace in Greek myth who assaulted his sister-in-law Philomela and was later transformed into a hoopoe bird
2. In Greek legend, the Thracian king who wronged Philomela and was turned into a hoopoe by the gods
3. A figure from Greek mythology, the Thracian monarch whose cruelty toward Philomela led to his transformation into a bird

Etymology: Tereus is the name of a king of Thrace in Greek myth, and his story is among the darkest in classical literature. He married Procne, daughter of the Athenian king Pandion, and after she asked to see her sister Philomela, he took Philomela away and raped her, then cut out her tongue so she could not tell anyone. Philomela wove the story into a tapestry and sent it to Procne, and the sisters took revenge by killing Tereus's son and serving the boy to his father. The gods then transformed the figures into birds, with Tereus becoming a hoopoe. The name was borrowed into English from Latin "Tēreus", which in turn came from Ancient Greek "Τηρεύς" (Tēreús). The myth reached Western readers largely through Ovid's "Metamorphoses", and the name has stayed attached to the story ever since, which is why it appears in English as a proper noun for a character rather than a common word with a broader sense.