Elysian Fields
5
9.9
- noun
- /ɪˈlɪʒən fildz/
- Literature
:
Campos Elíseos
- May they receive you warmly in the Elysian Fields.
- go to the Elysian Fields
Examples
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Heaven, Hell, oblivion, the Elysian Fields, it doesn't matter—is held back in this world, tied to its still-breathing body.
Fiction book (1994) -
Those are the Elysian Fields.
-
You said there might be something available over in Elysian Fields?
Fiction book (1998) -
Having lived a long and happy life, he happily went at last to the blessed regions of the Elysian Fields.
Academic text (1996) -
There are two verses in the sixth book of the Aeneid that have been much admired: they are in the place where Virgil says that the heroes retain the same habits in the Elysian Fields that they had during their lives.
Academic text (2001) -
The transformation rendered these our very own Elysian Fields, recast in winter light, the smell of snow on sugar pines, and my father and I, otherwise ill at ease in our long and graceless bodies, were here become as gliding gods.
Fiction book (2000) -
After a long and noble life, he was finally welcomed into the Elysian Fields, a paradise for heroes.
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In ancient tales, the brave warriors who fell in battle would find eternal peace in the Elysian Fields.
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To many, the Elysian Fields symbolize the ultimate reward for a virtuous life.
Synonyms
77
4.0
A perfect, happy place where good people go after death
23
5.1
A perfect, untouched garden in the Bible where the first humans lived and a way to say an unspoiled place
3
9.9
The place in Greek myths where blessed souls live after death in happiness
1
8.3
A holy place where people believe God and the blessed live after death
1
6.8
A place or state that has great happiness and peace
A beautiful city in Heaven that good people go to after they die
A perfect, peaceful place often shown as a beautiful city in religious writing
Surface Forms
Morphology
elysian + Fields
Knowing 'elysian' (paradisiacal, idyllic) and 'fields' (meadows) lets a learner infer a general meaning of 'paradise-like meadows' or a blissful place, so the basic sense is partially compositional. However, the specific cultural/ mythological reference to the Greek afterlife reserved for heroes and its status as a proper noun are encyclopedic details not predictable from the parts alone, so full meaning requires prior exposure.
Etymology
Elysian Fields comes from old Greek stories about a bright, peaceful land where heroes rested after death. People pictured wide fields of light and flowers, so the phrase now means 'a paradise for heroes and good people'.