Desdemona

//ˌdɛzdəˈmoʊnə// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Othello's wife in Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, noted for being a victim of jealousy.

    "As I looked out of the corner of my eye at this savagely picturesque fellow, wondering where was his Desdemona, a dainty and remarkably pretty piece of femininity entered the car, advanced to our table and sat herself beside Othello."

  2. 2
    An inner moon of the planet Uranus.
  3. 3
    666 Desdemona, a main-belt asteroid discovered in 1908.

Example

More examples

"Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?"

Etymology

Coined based on Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-) + δαίμων (daímōn), hence "ill-fated, unfortunate".

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.