Narcissus

//nɑɹˈsɪsəs// name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A youth who spurned the love of Echo and fell in love with his own reflection in a pool: in some versions of the myth, he drowned trying to reach it, while in others he sat fixated until a god took pity and transformed him into a flower. Greek

    "At the beginning of his narrative, Ishmael mentions Narcissus, the legendary character who plunged into the water and was drowned in the attempt to grasp his own essence (p. 14). Narcissus was unwilling to understand the relationship between himself and “the ungraspable phantom of life” in gradualistic terms and sought to bring that relationship to immediate closure, thus annihilating himself."

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of several bulbous flowering plants, of the genus Narcissus, having white or yellow cup- or trumpet-shaped flowers, notably the daffodil

    "The Daughters of the Flood have ſearch'd the Mead / For Violets pale, and cropt the Poppy's Head: / The Short Narciſſus and fair Daffodil, / Pancies to pleaſe the Sight, and Caſſia ſvveet to ſmell: […]"

  2. 2
    bulbous plant having erect linear leaves and showy yellow or white flowers either solitary or in clusters wordnet
  3. 3
    A beautiful young man, like the mythological Greek Narcissus

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin narcissus, from Ancient Greek νάρκισσος (nárkissos), ultimately either from Pre-Greek or related to νάρκη (nárkē).

Etymology 2

From Latin Narcissus, from Ancient Greek Νάρκισσος (Nárkissos, “Narcissus”).

Next best steps

Mini challenge

Unscramble this word: narcissus