Riphaean
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Latin Rīphaeus + -an. Compare Rhipaean.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
Riphaean (not comparable)
- (now historical) Designating a range of mountains once thought to be located in northern Europe, later considered mythological or identified with the Urals. [from 16th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- The substance, whereof she the body made, / Was purest snow in massy mould congeald, / Which she had gathered in a shady glade / Of the Riphœan hills […]