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Glite Dictionary
Olympian Games

Olympian Games

7.2
An ancient Greek festival at Olympia with sports and religious ceremonies held every four years to honor Zeus
  • noun
  • /oʊˈlɪm.pi.ən ɡeɪmz/
translation icon : Juegos Olímpicos
  • The first recorded Olympian Games took place in 776 BC and included events like running and wrestling.

Examples

  • Mind and Body announced in 1900: "America gets the Olympian Games for 1900." Mind and Body condemned the plan for a yearly Olympics, thus siding with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

    Academic text (1995)

  • The Olympian Games were held in ancient Greece to celebrate the god Zeus every four years.

  • Athletes from all over Greece traveled to participate in the historic Olympian Games at Olympia.

Synonyms

Olympic Games
vsOlympian Games
2 2.1

An ancient Greek festival at Olympia every four years with athletic competitions to honor Zeus

has the same meaning but is a different name for the festival

Surface Forms

Olympian Games singular
Olympian Games plural

Morphology

Olympian + game

The meaning 'a festival of athletic contests at Olympia' is directly derivable from combining 'Olympian' (relating to Olympia) with 'games' (sports contests). This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish/ French equivalents) and a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's core meaning.

Etymology

Olympian Games comes from an ancient festival held at a place called Olympia, where athletes from all over Greece competed every four years to 'honor' the god Zeus by racing, wrestling and showing strength. So the name now brings to mind that big sporting and religious event from ancient Greece.