Galatea Definition

gălə-tēə
noun
A strong, twilled cotton cloth, often striped, used for play clothes, uniforms, etc.
Webster's New World
A statue of a maiden which is given life by Aphrodite after its sculptor, Pygmalion, falls in love with it.
Webster's New World

Other Word Forms of Galatea

Noun

Singular:
galatea
Plural:
galateas

Origin of Galatea

  • After the Galatea , a 19th-century English warship (from the fabric's use for children's sailor suits)

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Galatea Sentence Examples

  • Of these, Thetis and Amphitrite rule the sea according to the legend of different localities; Galatea is a Sicilian figure, who plays with and deludes her rustic lover of the shore, Polyphemus.

  • The love of the Cyclops for Galatea had been treated by Philoxenus, and fragments quoted from this show that Theocritus copied some of his phrases closely.

  • His "Wrestlers" (1875) and "Fan and Dagger" (1882; a defiant Spanish woman) are in the Luxembourg, and other pictures of importance are "The Beheading of St John the Baptist" (1877), "The Sphinx" (1883), "Acis and Galatea" (1885), "Old Woman and Child" (1886) and "In the Bull Slaughter-House."

  • It takes its name from the river Acis, into which, according to the legend, Acis, the lover of Galatea, was changed after he had been slain by Polyphemus.

  • A later story associates Polyphemus with Galatea (see Acis).

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