Cynthia

plural Cynthias · alternative Cinthia · alternative Cinthya · alternative Cintia · alternative Cintya · alternative Cynthea · alternative Cyntheia · alternative Cynthya · alternative Sinthia · alternative Sintia · alternative Synthea · alternative Synthia · alternative Syntia

1. Artemis (Greek goddess).

   Synonyms: Delia

2. literaryThe Moon.

   [...] Cynthia's shining orb was made / Heav'n to clear when day did close [...].

   1601, Ben Jonson, Hymn to Diana

   1 more example

   As when faire Cynthia, in darkesome night, / Is in a noyous cloud enveloped [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   Synonyms: Luna, Selene

3. A female given name from Ancient Greek.

   “Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for poetry, not for daily use.”

   1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 10, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   Cynthia, the domestic-minded, looked as dashing as a young commando. It was a pity that her spelling was so bad, but perhaps there was something Elizabethan about her spelling as well as about her name.

   1978, Graham Greene, The Human Factor, →ISBN, page 59

   Her twin daughters were on the playground equipment. Cynthia and Melinda, reduced to Cindy and Mindy, as Carella had dreaded would happen from the moment she named them.

   1999, Ed McBain, The Big Bad City, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 139

   This hierarchisation of deaths has been challenged by gender scholars, with Cynthia Enloe coining the notion of “womenandchildren” in her 1990 text "Bananas, Beaches and Bases" to critique the use of this abstract category.

   2021 June 10, Iona Cable, ““Women And Children”: The Role Of Innocence In Human Rights Reporting”, in Human Rights Pulse, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2024