Actaeon
name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A cuckold. archaic, slang
"[…] but I had the story from some French officers of distinction, who mentioned the name of the injured and prudent husband, and that he was a person of very high rank. That name, however, even if I had not forgotten it, I should not think it fair to repeat, because it would seem to be a matter of some moment to the gentleman though he was an Acteon, not to be thought so."
- 1 To cuckold. obsolete, rare, slang, transitive
"[…] where vaine glorious Ixion Proclaymed, that he was the Minion of Juno, and had Acteoned Jupiter: for which arrogancie, Jupiter threw him to Hell, with this pictured vengeaunce."
- 1 Grandson of Cadmus, transformed into a stag by Artemis in book III of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Greek
"Amid so much prosperity, it was one of his grandsons, Actaeon, who first brought distress to Cadmus, when antlers, foreign to his human shape, sprouted from the youth's forehead, and his hounds gorged themselves on their master's blood."
Example
More examples"Actaeon, a famous hunter, having accidentally seen Artemis on Mount Cithaeron while she was bathing, was changed by her into a stag, and pursued and killed by his fifty hounds."
Etymology
From Latin Actaeōn, from Ancient Greek Ἀκταίων (Aktaíōn). In Greek mythology, Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag with horns on his head. In European folklore, horns were considered the sign of a cuckold, whence the noun sense of Actaeon, "cuckold", and the verb sense "to cuckold", are derived. Compare horned, put horns on, etc.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.