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Meaning of Phrygian in English:

Phrygian

Pronunciation /?fr?d???n/

adjective

  • Relating to Phrygia, its people, or their language.

    ‘Eventually one said ‘bekos’ which was found to be the Phrygian word for ‘bread’, so the experimenter concluded that the Phrygian language must have been the original one!’
    • ‘Another element where the Phrygian style could have come from is the old Roman cult of Mithras - where Mithras often can be seen cutting the throat of a bull atop a shrine.’
    • ‘Achates is seldom represented artistically, but Iulus / Ascanius consistently appears in art as a small child in Phrygian costume and cap, holding a short shepherd's staff with a curved end.’
    • ‘Others include those of the Phrygian gods Attis & Cybele, & the Persian god Mithras.’
    • ‘In various accounts of the founding of Troy, Troy is described as a Phrygian city.’
    • ‘Third, he said, ‘was the suspicion that Montanism had been influenced by the cult of the Phrygian mother goddess, Cybele.’’
    • ‘He is a Phrygian satyr and river who challenged Apollo.’
    • ‘This zodiac constellation is represented by Ganymede, a beautiful Phrygian youth.’
    • ‘The early tyrants of ancient Greece and Sicily were benevolent rulers, who encouraged the development of democracy; the word tyrant probably came from the name of a Phrygian god and had nothing to do with terror.’
    • ‘It carries the name of Marsyas, the clearest of all Phrygian rivers.’
    • ‘Marsyas, or rather the restored ancient statues of the Phrygian satyr marking the entrance into the Medici garden, which was widely recognized as the precursor to the Accademia del Disegno, assumed a defining role in this process.’
    • ‘Antisthenes was born in Athens about 440 BCE. of a Phrygian or Thracian mother, and thus was only a half citizen.’
    • ‘The brutal language of the metaphor is as old as the Mediterranean fertility rituals, like that of Attys, a Phrygian king-god, said to have been transformed into a pine tree at his death.’
    • ‘The first great cultural influence was that of ancient Anatolia inhabited for thousands of years by peoples of various civilizations like the Greek, Phrygian, Lydian, Cappodocian and Byzantine to name a few.’
    • ‘They lust for his blood, to tear his limbs, this sacrificial lamb, who rapturously devours the raw flesh of slaughtered goat, spurred on to Phrygian or Lydian mountained lands by happy cries from a thousand ecstatic throats.’

noun

  • 1A native or inhabitant of ancient Phrygia.

    ‘Beginning around 2000 b.c., pre-Hittites, Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans had lived or ruled in the region.’
    • ‘It was also a tough day for future lay readers: all those forbidding names - Parthians, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, Pamphyilians - that whole crowd.’
    • ‘Gordium was a town in Galatia, the ancient capital of the Phrygians.’
    • ‘Armenian culture dates from the 6th century BC, when people who referred to themselves as the Hay and were descended from the ancient Phrygians founded a civilization on the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Urartu.’
    • ‘Well, we do know that at some stage there was a change in population where a group called the Phrygians move into the region replacing the Hittite population of the late Bronze Age.’
    • ‘Shout like Phrygians, sing out the tunes you know!’
    • ‘According to Herodotus (Book II), the Egyptians once considered themselves the oldest people in the world, but later conceded this distinction to the Phrygians.’
    • ‘According to Virgil they attacked the Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, though later they took his side against the Greeks, under the Amazon queen Penthesileia, who was killed by Achilles.’
    • ‘It is also important to remember that Phrygians (Marsyas's origins) were first to perform auspices.’

  • 2mass noun The language of the ancient Phrygians, of which only a few inscriptions survive. It is generally classified as an Indo-European language, with affinities to Greek and Armenian.

    ‘It comes from Phrygian, a now-extinct language once native to the Caucasus.’
    • ‘The pharaoh concluded that Phrygian, an older language spoken in a part of what is modern Turkey, must be the original language.’