ichthyocentaur
Aug. 2nd, 2023 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordichthyocentaur (ik-thee-uh-SEN-tawr) - n., (classical mythology) a sea creature with the upper body of a human, the front torso and legs of a horse, and the tail of a fish.
Take a centaur and convert him into a merman, and that's an ichthyocentaur -- also called a sea-centaur. Triton, son of Poseidon, is typically depicted as a merman but is sometimes (both in writing and art) as one of these. Depictions of ichthyocentaurs first show up in the 2nd century BCE, but interestingly the name (Ancient Greek ichthyokéntauros, from ikhthús, fish + kéntauros, centaur) wasn't coined until teh 12th century CE by Byzantine poet Ioannes Tzetzes.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
Take a centaur and convert him into a merman, and that's an ichthyocentaur -- also called a sea-centaur. Triton, son of Poseidon, is typically depicted as a merman but is sometimes (both in writing and art) as one of these. Depictions of ichthyocentaurs first show up in the 2nd century BCE, but interestingly the name (Ancient Greek ichthyokéntauros, from ikhthús, fish + kéntauros, centaur) wasn't coined until teh 12th century CE by Byzantine poet Ioannes Tzetzes.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
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