Pillars of Hercules
- proper noun
- Literature
:
Pilares de Hércules
- In mythology, the Pillars of Hercules were said to signify the edge of the known world.
Examples
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The only clue to its location was Plato's statement that it sat "in front of the Pillars of Hercules." The Pillars of Hercules are the mountaintops that border the sides of the Strait of Gibraltar at the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
Blog text (11) -
The only clue to its location was Plato's statement that it sat "in front of the Pillars of Hercules." The Pillars of Hercules are the mountaintops that border the sides of the Strait of Gibraltar at the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
Blog text (11) -
The Pillars of Hercules stand majestically at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.
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Many sailors and explorers have passed through the Pillars of Hercules on their way to new adventures.
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'pillar' and 'Hercules' can infer this refers to pillars associated with the mythological hero, so the phrase is partially compositional. However, the specific cultural/geographical meaning (the two promontories at the Strait of Gibraltar) is a fixed historical place name that requires background knowledge beyond the constituents, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Pillars of Hercules come from a Greek story that says Hercules split a mountain and left two huge rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar, the pillars. Ancient sailors saw those pillars as the gate to the unknown ocean, so the name came to mean a 'boundary' or the 'edge of the known world'.
