Stygian
Americanadjective
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of or relating to the river Styx or to Hades.
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dark or gloomy.
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infernal; hellish.
adjective
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of or relating to the river Styx
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literary
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dark, gloomy, or hellish
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completely inviolable, as a vow sworn by the river Styx
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Other Word Forms
- trans-Stygian adjective
Etymology
Origin of Stygian
1560–70; < Latin Stygi ( us ) < Greek Stýgios ( Styg-, stem of Stýx Styx + -ios adj. suffix) + -an
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A subtle reference to Serra’s father, a pipe fitter at a shipyard near San Francisco, it also puts us in mind of Charon’s ferry, shuttling souls across Stygian waters.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025
The summer-stock theatricality of finding each other dissipated as the pair walked along the museum’s Stygian passageways.
From The New Yorker • May 8, 2017
For the next 90 minutes, we traveled the Stygian depths separately, our frantic text messages to each other getting through only when our trains briefly surfaced over the East River.
From Washington Post • May 8, 2016
An ominous, rumbling score adds menace, suspended chords and electronic creaks suggesting a descent into some Stygian world.
From The Guardian • Oct. 19, 2014
He unsheathed his Stygian iron blade and approached the archway.
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
