Strephon

English

Etymology

Used as the name of a rustic lover in Sir Philip Sidney's pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (published 1593), from the active present participle στρέφων (stréphōn) of Ancient Greek στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist, turn aside”, verb).

Proper noun

Strephon

1. Masculine name traditionally used for the male lover in pastoral poetry.
   • 1719, Jonathan Swift, The progress of Beauty :

     To see her from her pillow rise, / All reeking in a cloudy steam, / Crack'd lips, foul teeth, and gummy eyes, / Poor Strephon! how would he blaspheme!

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter IX, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VI:

     As when two doves, or two wood-pigeons, or as when Strephon and Phyllis (for that comes nearest to the mark) are retired into some pleasant solitary grove, to enjoy the delightful conversation of Love […]

   • 1855, Frederick Lawrence, The life of Henry Fielding:

     […] those palmy days of pastoral revelry;—when every lover was a Damon or a Strephon, and his beloved a Delia or a Celia.

   • 1862, Theodore Winthrop, Edwin Brothertoft:

     I am still sick with his sentimentality of a Strephon. He is a flippant coxcomb.

   • 1901, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 87:

     All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance "as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantula doctors."

Noun

Strephon (plural Strephons)

1. A pastoral male lover.

Anagrams

• pen'orths