HALCYON • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Halcyon

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/hˈælsiən/ Listen

Halcyon

adjective

Idyllically calm and peaceful; suggesting happy tranquillity.

Marked by peace and prosperity. Synonyms: golden, prosperous. "The halcyon days of the clipper trade"

noun

(Greek mythology) a woman who was turned into a kingfisher. Synonym: Alcyone.

A large kingfisher widely distributed in warmer parts of the Old World. Synonym: genus Halcyon.

A mythical bird said to breed at the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea and to have the power of calming the winds and waves.

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"Halcyon" Quotes from Famous Books

... toward the north and toward the south, in the halcyon weather that had seldom failed since the withdrawal of the nebula, they arrived at the place (or above it) which had stood during centuries for ...

— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... cover the evening sky, As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air, As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree, Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! The brooding and blissful halcyon days! ...

— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... notion of the direction we ought to take. In the afternoon we found a tolerable anchorage under a small island and stayed for the night, and I shot a large fruit-pigeon new to me, which I have since named Carpophaga tumida. I also saw and shot at the rare white-headed kingfisher (Halcyon saurophaga), but did not kill it. The next morning we sailed on, and having a fair wind reached the shores of the large island of Waigiou. On rounding a point we again ran full on to a coral reef with our mainsail up, but luckily the wind had almost died away, and with ...

— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the grey Halcyon talked from cedar's spray, Drummed the partridge far away;— Ah! could we choose to ...

— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... Which once flashed as freedom's star! Till sweet peace—the bow and halcyon, Stilled the stormy strife of war. Listen! now thy country's calling On her sons to meet her foe! Sweet is love in moonlight bowers! Sweet the altar and the flame! Sweet the spring-time with her flowers! ...

— War Poetry of the South • Various

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