HALCYON • DICTIONARY ONE.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

... is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my ...

— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... chapel and its paintings were kept to the last; and Watts, high though his expectations were, was overwhelmed at what he saw. 'Michelangelo', he said, 'stands for Italy, as Shakespeare does for England.' So the four years went by till in 1847 this halcyon period came to an end. The Royal Commission of Fine Arts was offering prizes for fresco-painting, and Watts felt that he must put his growing powers to the test and utilize what he had learnt. This time he chose for his subject ...

— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... wandering life, but another time the mishap might not be turned to diversion. The coach would not always traverse sunny byways; the dry leaf floating from the majestic arm of the oak, the sound of an acorn as it struck the earth presaged days less halcyon to come. ...

— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... family servant—an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth—the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"—before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains ...

— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... halcyon dreams they were startled one morning, at daybreak, by a savage yell, and jumped for their rifles. The yell was repeated by two or three voices. Cautiously peeping out, they beheld, to their dismay, several Indian warriors among the trees, all armed and painted ...

— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

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