Lotophagus

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Lōtophagus, from Ancient Greek Λωτοφάγος (Lōtophágos, literally “lotus eater”).

Noun

Lotophagus (plural Lotophagi or Lotophages)

1. A member of the Lotophagi; a lotus eater.
   • 1847, The Ecclesiastic [afterw.] The Theologian and ecclesiastic [afterw.] The Ecclesiastic and theologian [afterw.] The Ecclesiastic, page 131:

     It will be acquiesced in by a much less deserving band, if band it may be called, when each fights for his own hand, without respect to his neighbour, by those who have set their hearts and their treasures in this world, and exert what powers of thought they in devising a sickly optimism, by which the existing state of things, whatever it may be, may be made into a fool's paradise — men of whom Charles Lamb was perhaps the most favourable specimen, that " mild-eyed melancholy" Lotophagus of literature.

   • 1849, Ferdinand Werne, Expedition to discover the sources of the White Nile, in the years 1840, 1841, from the Germ., by C.W. O'Reilly, page 125:

     To our taste, the best way to dress the bulbs, and to free them from the marshy flavour they leave behind in the mouth, is to drain the water off several times in cooking them ; they then taste nearly like boiled celery, and may be very nourishing; but I would not be a Lotophagus here, for I had much rather eat potatoes with their jackets on.

   • 1870, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, page 37:

     But far from this, the blighted spinster is fair, fat, and — no ! never shall it be said that the Lotophagus ever attempted to solve that impenetrable mystery.

   • 1984, Jackson J. Benson, The true adventures of John Steinbeck, writer: a biography, Viking Pr:

     Anyway the beer is here and the rooming here and the sun is here and if things get too tough you can soon become a lotophagus along with the rest of us.