ephebus

[ ih-fee-buhs ]

noun

, plural e·phe·bi [ih-, fee, -bahy].

1. a youth of ancient Greece just entering manhood or commencing training for full Athenian citizenship.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ephebus¹

From Latin; ephebe

Example Sentences

Even within the narrow limits of the characters most familiar to ancient comedy—the 'amans ephebus,' the 'meretrix blanda,' the 'fallax servus,' the 'bragging captain,' the 'parasite,' the 'leno,' the 'old men'—good, kindly, severe, genial, sensual and disreputable,—we find great individual differences.

From Project Gutenberg

Miser, ah miser! querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime: Ego puber, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer; Ego gymnasii fui flos, ego eram decus olei; Mihi januæ frequentes, mihi limina tepida, Mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat, Linquendum ubi esset, orto mihi Sole, cubiculum.

From Project Gutenberg

Euripides became officially an "Ephêbus," or "Youth."

From Project Gutenberg

It is not improbable that the union of strength and beauty so conspicuously exhibited in the ideal forms of the two children of Latona was suggested by the peculiar character of the Doric education; and that the artist represented the god as an Ephebus, whose skill in the chorus and on the field of battle was exactly equal.

From Project Gutenberg

He seems to have been regarded as the typical Athenian athlete or ephebus, and his contests as analogous to episodes of the gymnasium.

From Project Gutenberg