Eleutherian

1. alternativeAlternative form of Eleutheran: of or relating to the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, especially to the original settlers of the island.

   A naturalist would never weary in the Eleutherian scene.

   1934, Hugh MacLachlan Bell, Bahamas: Isles of June, page 111

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   Your Eleutherian son is very valuable to us & will daily become more so.

   1807, Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Dupont De Nemours, page 112

   Eleutherian settlers give Harvard ten tons of braziletto wood.

   1975, George Hunte, The Bahamas, page 185

   Spanish warships burned the original Eleutherian villages to the ground in 1684, but by that time scattered settlements had appeared all along Eleuthera's coastline and neighboring cays.

   1997, Richard Harris, Lynn Seldon, Hidden Bahamas, page 36

   I've been familiar with the story of the Eleutherian Adventurers for several decades, since high school in Nassau, where our history teacher told us that we could be descended from these people—and some of us were.

   2018, Gabrielle F. Culmer, The Eleutherian Voyagers and Beyond, →ISBN

plural Eleutherians

1. alternativeAlternative form of Eleutheran: one of the original settlers of Eleuthera, who settled prior to the American Revolution.

   Freedom of a sort the Eleutherians certainly had.

   2011, Michael Craton, Gail Saunders, Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People, →ISBN

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   The New Englanders generously sent supplies, and the Eleutherians thanked them by returning the ship loaded with hardwood.

   1988, Sara Whittier, Bahamas, page 195

   He was one of the six Eleutherians whom Governor George Phenny had selected from among the inhabitants of the Colony as "fit persons to be recommended to His Majesty to be elected by the Public to make an Assembly, or execute other public offices under the Government."

   2009, A. Talbot Bethell, The Early Settlers of the Bahamas and Colonists of North America, →ISBN

1. Of or relating to the Eleutheria, an ancient Greek festival held at Plataea in honor of Zeus Eleutherius.

   Liberty, in these latter days, means something more than was celebrated in the Eleutherian festivals, or exemplified in the political institutions of the States of Greece, and the Commonwealth of Rome.

   1836, Charles Fenno Hoffman, Lewis Gaylord Clark, Kinahan Cornwallis, The Knickerbocker: Or, New-York Monthly Magazine, page 41

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   The Eleutherian festival was a long-established panhellenic festival, held every four years. It honoured Zeus Eleutherius, protector of the freedom (eleutheria) from barbarian dominion which the victory on this spot had secured for the Greeks of former times.

   2011, A. J. S. Spawforth, Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution, →ISBN, page 131

1. Synonym of Eleutherius, epithet of Zeus/Jupiter.

   He enters the ruins of a temple, sacred to Eleutherian Jove, where himself and his train are suddenly alarmed by the voice of one, who complains of the severe fate of Eretria.

   1789, The Analytical Review

   Synonyms: Eleutherius, epithet of Zeus/Jupiter

2. Of or relating to Eleutherius, the official who built the eponymous harbour in Constantinople during the reign Constantine the Great; the neighbourhood of this harbour was later called "Eleutherian", as was the palace built by Empress Irene in this neighbourhood.

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   She was occupied in negotiating with the ambassador of Charlemagne the conditions of the great alliance between them, whereby the crowns of the East and West were to have been united on one head, when the patrician and chancellor of the empire, Nicephorus, summoned to the emperor, burst into the palace, and at first with friendly words offered to discover all the treasures of the crown, for which he promised to make over to the Eleutherian palace as a widow's residence.

   1840, A Handbook for Travellers in the Ionian Islands

1. Of or relating to Dionysus Eleuthereus, of whose sanctuary the south slope of the Acropolis was originally a part; the said sanctuary included a temple containing his xoanon.

   There are no signs of rebuilding, and yet Pausanias saw two temples, one containing the old Eleutherian image.

   1890, The Nation, volume 51, page 56

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   He sees within the precinct there two temples, the foundations of which remain to-day; one of them was named Eleutherian, the other we think may surely have belonged to Dionysos-in-the-Marshes

   2014, Jane Ellen Harrison, Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides, →ISBN, page 83

1. Of, from or relating to Eleutherae, an ancient city and fortress between Attica and Boeotia.

   If the work cannot compare with the Hellenic masonry of the Messenian or Eleutherian walls, neither does it betray the rude power and massiveness of the Argolic acropoles.

   1894, Georges Perrot, Charles Chipiez, History of Art in Primitive Greece, page 116

plural Eleutherians

1. A native or inhabitant of Eleutherae, an ancient city and fortress between Attica and Boeotia.

   Thus, these considerations associate the citizenship of the Eleutherians with their joining the Athenians in the late sixth century, which is exactly what Pausanias tells us.

   1991, Thomas J. Figueira, Athens and Aigina in the Age of Imperial Colonization, page 155

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   This Valley belonged in very ancient times to the Eleutherians; who being subjećt to those of Thebes, out of an inveterated hatred and emulation revolted from them and join'd themselves to the Athenians, as was pretended out of a great fancy and good affection they took to their way of Government.

   1682, George Wheler, Journey Into Greece. 6 Books with Variety of Sculptures, page 474

   Pausanias does not specifically say that the Eleutherians received Athenian citizenship, only that they desired it; but there is nothing inherently implausible in the suggestion that the Eleutherians were made Athenian citizens

   1993, Martha Caroline Taylor, The Geographical Dimensions of the Polis

plural Eleutherians

1. A member of a splinter group of puritans led by Cotton Mather.

   Sept. 15. Land in Casco Bay granted to the Eleutherians.

   1846, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, page 257

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   True ELEUTHERIANS will consider, how far any further Agreement may be Necessary: And whether those unreasonable Sons of Procrustes, the Narrow-soul'd and Imperious Bigots for Uniforming, will do Religion any real Service, by the pressing of it.

   1726, Cotton Mather, Ratio Disciplina Fratrum Nov-Anglorum

   Beginning in the late 1690s, Cotton became the leader — he privately wrote that he was the sole leader — of an alternative party of “Eleutherians.” This meant freemen, or libertarians, who embrace the fullness of the gospel life.

   2015, Rick Kennedy, The First American Evangelical: A Short Life of Cotton Mather, →ISBN, page 82