Meanings
alternative Tropaean
- rareGreek and Roman antiquitiesAn epithet of Jupiter and Zeus: turner to flight; he who puts to flight.
At the seven gates seven Argive warriors rag’d, / / But, Chief with daring Chief engag’d, / / Left to Tropæan Jove their glittering spoils.
1813, Sophocles (author) and R. Potter (translator), “Antigone” (lines 156–161) in The Tragedies of Sophocles, page 1421 more example
The sanctuary of Tropaean (‘turner to flight’) Zeus was made by the Dorians after they had conquered the Amyclaeans and the rest of the Achaeans.
1898, Sir James George Frazer (translator), Pausanias’s Description of Greece I, page 152
Origin
- Ancient Greekτροπαῖος
- Latintropae(us)“turning back”, “returning”
- EnglishTropæan
From Latin tropae(us) (“turning back”, “returning”, adjective) + -an; from the Plinian phrase ventī tropaeī (“sea-breezes”, literally “winds blowing from the sea towards the land”), from Ancient Greek τροπαῖος (tropaîos, adjective) (also used in the noun phrase πνοή τροπαία (pnoḗ tropaía, “an alternating wind, blowing back from sea to land”)), from τρόπος (trópos, “turning”).
More words from Latin, Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Tropæan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Trop%C3%A6an
“Tropæan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Trop%C3%A6an. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Tropæan,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Trop%C3%A6an.
Source: Tropæan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.