Demeter definition

dĭ-mētər
The goddess of the harvest, daughter of Rhea and Cronus and mother of Persephone.
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(gr. myth., person, proper) The goddess of agriculture and fertility: identified with the Roman Ceres.
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(Greek mythology) The goddess of the fertility of the Earth and harvests, protector of marriage and social order; daughter of Cronos and Rhea, mother to Persephone.
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Origin of demeter

  • Greek Dēmētēr māter- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Ancient Greek Δημήτηρ (Dēmētēr), from γῆ (gē) + μήτηρ (mētēr).

    From Wiktionary

Demeter Sentence Examples

  • At Eleusis, Demeter was venerated as the introducer of all the blessings which agriculture brings in its train - fixed dwelling-places, civil order, marriage and a peaceful life; hence her name Thesmophoros, " the bringer of law and order," and the festival Thesmophoria.

  • But when Greek deities were introduced into Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books (in 495 B.C., on the occasion of a severe drought), Demeter, the Greek goddess of seed and harvest, whose worship was already common in Sicily and Lower Italy, usurped the place of Ceres in Rome, or rather, to Ceres were added the religious rites which the Greeks paid to Demeter, and the mythological incidents which originated with her.

  • At Eleusis also, Triptolemus, the son of Celeus, who was said to have invented the plough and to have been sent by Demeter round the world to diffuse the knowledge of agriculture, had a temple and threshing-floor.

  • In the agrarian legends of Iasion and Erysichthon, Demeter also plays an important part.

  • It seems to point to the supersession of a primitive local Cretan divinity by Demeter, and the adoption of agriculture by the inhabitants, bringing wealth in its train in the form of the fruits of the earth, both vegetable and mineral.

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