Hy·per·bo·re·an

(hī′pər-bôr′ē-ən, -bə-rē′ən)

n. Greek Mythology

One of a people known to the ancient Greeks from the earliest times, living in a perpetually warm and sunny land north of the source of the north wind.

adj.

1. Of or relating to the Hyperboreans.

2. hyperborean

a. Of or relating to the far north; Arctic.

b. Very cold; frigid.

[From Latin Hyperboreus, from Hyperboreī, the Hyperboreans, from Greek Huperboreoi : huper-, hyper- + boreios, northern, or Boreās, the north wind, the north.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Hyperborean

(ˌhaɪpəˈbɔːrɪən)

1. (Classical Myth & Legend) Greek myth one of a people believed to have lived beyond the North Wind in a sunny land

2. (Classical Myth & Legend) an inhabitant of the extreme north

adj

3. (Classical Myth & Legend) (sometimes not capital) of or relating to the extreme north

4. (Classical Myth & Legend) of or relating to the Hyperboreans

[C16: from Latin hyperboreus, from Greek huperboreos, from hyper- + Boreas the north wind]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Hy•per•bo•re•an

(ˌhaɪ pərˈbɔr i ən, -ˈboʊr-, -bəˈri-)

n.

1. a member of a people of ancient Greek legend reputed to live in a land of perpetual sunshine and abundance beyond the north wind.

2. an inhabitant of an extreme northern region.

adj.

3. of or pertaining to the Hyperboreans.

4. (l.c.) of, pertaining to, or living in a far northern region; arctic.

[1590–1600; < Latin hyperbore(us) (< Greek hyperbóreos Hyperborean =hyper- hyper- + -boreos, adj. derivative of boréas the north wind) + -an¹; see Boreas]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

Hyperborean - (Greek mythology) one of a people that the ancient Greeks believed lived in a warm and sunny land north of the source of the north wind

Greek mythology - the mythology of the ancient Greeks

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

....of the well-horsed Hyperboreans -- whom Earth the all- nourishing bare far off by the tumbling streams of deep-flowing Eridanus....

View in context

True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood.

View in context

While the fiery and magnificent Spaniard, inflamed with the mania for gold, has extended his discoveries and conquests over those brilliant countries scorched by the ardent sun of the tropics, the adroit and buoyant Frenchman, and the cool and calculating Briton, have pursued the less splendid, but no less lucrative, traffic in furs amidst the hyperborean regions of the Canadas, until they have advanced even within the Arctic Circle.

Few travellers that have visited Canada some thirty years since, in the days of the M'Tavishes, the M'Gillivrays, the M'Kenzies, the Frobishers, and the other magnates of the Northwest, when the company was in all its glory, but must remember the round of feasting and revelry kept up among these hyperborean nabobs.

View in context

In the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men of Hyperborean extraction swoop down on to our pond one morning, with many carloads of ungainly-looking farming tools -- sleds, plows, drill-barrows, turf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and each man was armed with a double-pointed pike-staff, such as is not described in the New-England Farmer or the Cultivator.

View in context

"Don't you try to come over me with your Hyperborean manners," Mr Verloc defended himself huskily, looking at the carpet.

View in context

"Heracles, the Hyperboreans, and the Hind: Pindar, Olympian 3." Phoenix 36: 295-305.

Pindar's Peaceful Rapes

Once you will have done this, father, your fame will be high as heaven and it will reach the farthest lands of the Hyperboreans. Which tongue, which mouth of either rhetors or singers could not chant your fame?

Musurus' homeric ode to Plato and his requests to Pope Leo X