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nepenthes

ne·pen·thes/nəˈpɛnθiz/noun

nepenthes is a noun meaning “A drug mentioned in Homer's Odyssey (c. 8th century B.C.E.) as bringing relief from anxiety or grief; hence, any drug or substance seen as bringing…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-E-P-E-N-T-H-E-S and has 3 syllables (ne·pen·thes), and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does nepenthes mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A drug mentioned in Homer's Odyssey (c. 8th century B.C.E.) as bringing relief from anxiety or grief; hence, any drug or substance seen as bringing welcome forgetfulness or relief.

  2. 2

    A Southeast Asian carnivorous plant of the genus Nepenthes; a monkey cup or tropical pitcher plant.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce nepenthes?

  • UK /nɪˈpɛnθiːz/
  • US /nəˈpɛnθiz/

Nepenthes has 3 syllables, split ne·pen·thes in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-nepenthes.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of nepenthes

  • nepenth
  • nepenthe

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is nepenthes?

Nepenthes appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Where does nepenthes come from?

Borrowed from Latin nēpenthes (“a drug bringing relief from grief”), from Ancient Greek νηπενθές (nēpenthés), neuter of νηπενθής (nēpenthḗs, “sorrow-banishing”), from νη- (nē-, “not”) + πένθος (pénthos, “grief”) (from πάσχειν (páskhein), present active infinitive of πάσχω (páskhō, “to be ill or injured in a certain way; to suffer”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷendʰ- (“to endure, to suffer”)). Compare French népenthès (“a plant from which a drug supposedly bringing relief from grief may be obtained; such a drug”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).