Philomela
name
name ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Proper Noun
- 1 A female given name.
- 2 the sister of Procne who is raped and mutilated by her brother-in-law Tereus and supposedly transformed into a bird by the gods. Greek
- 3 The nightingale. literary
Etymology
From Latin Philomela, from Ancient Greek Φιλομήλη (Philomḗlē), from φίλος (phílos, “love”) + μῆλον (mêlon, “apple; fruit; sheep”), but folk-etymologized since at least Ovid's time as "lover of song".
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.