www.alphadictionary.com

hal·cy·on (hls-n)
n.
1. A kingfisher, especially one of the genus Halcyon.
2. A fabled bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was supposed to have had the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nested on the sea during the winter solstice.
adj.
1. Calm and peaceful; tranquil.
2. Prosperous; golden: halcyon years.

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[Middle English alcioun, from Latin alcyn, halcyn, from Greek halkun, a mythical bird, kingfisher, alteration (influenced by hals, salt, sea, and kun, conceiving) of alkun.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words AntonymsNoun 1. Halcyon - (Greek mythology) a woman who was turned into a kingfisher
Alcyone
Greek mythology - the mythology of the ancient Greeks
mythical being - an imaginary being of myth or fable
2. Halcyon - a large kingfisher widely distributed in warmer parts of the Old World
genus Halcyon
bird genus - a genus of birds
Alcedinidae, family Alcedinidae - kingfishers
3. halcyon - a mythical bird said to breed at the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea and to have the power of calming the winds and waves
mythical being - an imaginary being of myth or fable
Adj. 1. halcyon - idyllically calm and peaceful; suggesting happy tranquillity; "a halcyon atmosphere"
peaceful - not disturbed by strife or turmoil or war; "a peaceful nation"; "peaceful times"; "a far from peaceful Christmas"; "peaceful sleep"
2. halcyon - marked by peace and prosperity; "a golden era"; "the halcyon days of the clipper trade"
golden, prosperous
happy - enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure or good fortune; "a happy smile"; "spent many happy days on the beach"; "a happy marriage"
from www.freedictionary.com

Halcyon-days
Halcyon is the Greek for a kingfisher, compounded of hals, the sea, and kuo, to brood on. The ancient Sicilians believed that the kingfisher laid its eggs and incubated for fourteen days, before the winter solstice, on the surface of the sea.
-Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1887

A term applied by the ancients to the seven days which immediately precede and follow the shortest day, from the circumstance that the halcyon, or kingfisher, selected that period for incubation, and they believed that on that account, the weather was always remarkably quiet about that time. Hence the pharase halcyon-days has passed into a proverb as denoting a time of peace and tranquility.
--T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Language, 1871

Alcione....

I always thought it was Alcinoe. That's how studying foreign names in katakana ends up sometimes.

Flma

Gee Larry, not another dig? I got it from using it, I said it to someone and thought it'd make a good word for WOTD. my calendar has numbers not words on it.

Kt
I do belong to several other WOTD lists tho' and I do, actually have a pretty decent vocabulary, a memory lexicon of available words that might just surprise you. and here you are still laboring under your fine line.

03/01
toesmithing -- Dancing. Theater Slang. -Maurice Weseen's A Dictionary of American Slang, 1934

03/02
Englishable -- That may be rendered into English. -John Ogilvie's Comprehensive ENglish Dictionary, 1865

03/04-05
quaker's bargain -- A yea-or-nay bargain; a take-it-or-leave-it transaction. -John Farmer and W. E. Henley's Slang and its Analogues, 1890-1904
[This one reminds me of a Hobson's Choice, which hasn't been suggested on this board yet]

03/20
curlaff -- The shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water -John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808

Curgloft, panic-stricken; Banffshire. -Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911

03/25-26
Rhetoricate -- To play the actor. -Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon, C. 1850

03/30
nullifidian -- Of no honestie; of no religion. -John Bullokar's An English Expositor, 1616

-- One of no faith or religion; a sceptic in matters of religion. -Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908

03/31
bog-oranges -- Potatoes. A phrase perhaps derived from the term 'Irish fruit,' which by some peculiarity has been applied to potatoes, for even the most ignorant Cockney could hardly believe that potatoes grow in a bog. As, however, the majority of the lower classes of London do believe that potatoes were indigenous to, and were first brought from the soil of Irelenad, . . . they may even believe that potatoes are actually bog-oranges. -John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887

04/11
whelm -- To cover with something which cannot be thrown off, generallyl applied to water; to throw upon something so as to cover or bury it; to turn the open side of a vessel downwards. [From] Saxon abwhilsan. -Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775

04/12
Welsh ambassador -- The cuckoo. "Welsh ambassador" means that the bird announces the migration of Welsh labourers into England for summer employment. -Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898

04/13
vocabulation --The use or choice of words. -William Craigie's New English Dictionary, 1928

Birthday of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
As the third American president one wrote to Englishman John Denison, "It is much to be wished that the publication of the county dialects of England should go on. It will restore to us our language in all shades of variation. It will incorporate into the present one all the riches of our ancient dialects; . . . I set equal value on the beautiful engraftments we have borrowed from Greece and Rome, and I am a friend to the encouragement of judicious neology. A language cannot be too rich."