Hippocrene

[ hip-uh-kreen, hip-uh-kree-nee ]

noun

1. a spring on Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses and regarded as a source of poetic inspiration.

Hippocrene

/ ˈhɪpəʊˌkriːn; ˌhɪpəʊˈkriːnɪ /

noun

1. a spring on Mount Helicon in Greece, said to engender poetic inspiration

Derived Forms

• ˌHippoˈcrenian, adjective

Other Words From

• Hippo·creni·an adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of Hippocrene¹

C17: via Latin from Greek hippos horse + krēnē spring

Example Sentences

The spring beloved of poets, Hippocrene, on Helicon, the Muses’ mountain, had sprung up where his hoof had struck the earth.

From Literature

It might throw in some trivia—that when Keats dreamed of the “true, the blushful Hippocrene,/ with beaded bubbles winking at the brim,” he may have been alluding to hippocras, one of sangria’s ancestors; that Jane Austen’s heroines drank a version of sangria at their dance parties; that sangria might have arrived in the United States with the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.

From Slate

In classical legend, Hippocrene, the fountain on Mount Helicon created by Pegasus's hoof, is sacred to the Muses and inspires whoever drinks from it.

From The Guardian

I might drink and leave the world unseen …The lines prompted Bentley's clerihew: "John Keats/Among other notable feats/Drank off a soup-tureen/Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene."

From The Guardian

Hard by were the famous fountains, Aganippe and Hippocrene, the latter fabled to have gushed from the earth at the tread of the winged horse Pegasus, whose favourite browsing place was there.

From Project Gutenberg