venerate v

[L veneratus, fr. vener-, venus love, sexual desire; assoc. with Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, equiv. to the Greek Aphrodite] : to honor (as an icon) with a ritual act of devotion

venereal adj

1 : of or relating to sexual pleasure 2 : resulting from or contracted during sexual intercourse

¹ venus n

[L Venus Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty] : a beautiful woman

² Venus n

the planet second from the sun

Venushair n

a delicate maidenhair fern (Adiantum capillus-veneris) that grows chiefly on wet calcareous rocks

Venus's girdle n

an iridescent blue and green ctenophore, Cestum veneris, having a ribbon-shaped, gelatinous body

Venus's looking-glass n

any of several campanulaceous herbs of the genus Specularia, esp. S. Specularia Veneris, having blue or white flowers

vesper n

[late ME, fr. L evening (star), esp. Hesper, fr. Hesperos, Greek god of evening] 1 : the evening star 2 : a bell rung at evening 3 : eveningtide

vespers n

a religious service in the late afternoon or evening

Vesta n

[Vesta Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth, worshipped in a temple containing an altar on which a sacred fire was kept burning by vestal virgins, akin to the Greek Hestia] : the third largest and one of the four brightest asteroids in the solar system

vestal adj

1 : chaste, pure 2 : a chaste unmarried woman; virgin 3 : a nun

volcanic adj

[fr. L Volcanus, var. of Vulcanus Vulcan, the ancient Roman god of fire and metalworking, identified with the Greek Hephaestus] 1 : of or pertaining to volcanoes 2 : discharged from or produced by volcanoes 3 : suggestive of a volcano: potentially explosive, volatile

volcano n

a mountain or hill having a cuplike crater at the summit, formed around a vent in the earth through which ash and lava are expelled

vulcanian adj

[fr. L Vulcani(us) of Vulcan] 1 : volcanic 2 : of or pertaining to metalworking

vulcanite n

a hard, readily cut and polished rubber used in the manufacture of combs, buttons, and for electrical insulation

vulcanize v

to treat rubber with sulfur while under moderate heat in order to render it nonplastic and give it greater elasticity, strength, etc.: sometimes a large amount of sulfur and high heat are used to make it very hard, as in the case of vulcanite

An Etymological Dictionary of Classical Mythology by Elizabeth W. Kraemer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Last updated 1/13/14