Nem´esis, the Greek personification of retribution, or that punishment for sin which sooner or later overtakes the offender.
... and some great Nemesis
Break from a darkened future.
Tennyson, The Princess, (1847).
Ne´mo, the name by which Captain Hawdon was known at Krook’s. He had once won the love of the future Lady Dedlock, by whom he had a child called Esther Summerson; but he was compelled to copy law-writings for daily bread, and died a miserable death from an overdose of opium.—C. Dickens, Bleak House (1852).
Nepen´the (3 syl.) or Nepenthes, a care-dispelling drug, which Polydamna, wife of Tho´nis, king of Egypt, gave to Helen (daughter of Jove and Leda). A drink containing this drug “changed grief to mirth, melancholy to joyfulness, and hatred to love.” The water of Ardenne had the opposite effects. Homer mentions the drug nepenthê in his Odyssey, iv. 228.
That nepenthês which the wife of Thone,
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena.
Milton, Comus, (1634).
Nepenthê is a drink of sovereign grace.
Devisèd by the gods for to assuage
Heart’s grief, and bitter gall away to chase
Which stirs up anger and contentious rage;
Instead thereof sweet peace and quietage
It doth establish in the troubled mind ...
And such as drink, eternal happiness do find.
Spencer, Faëry Queen, iv. 2 (1596).
Nep´omuk or Nep´omuck (St. John), canon of Prague. He was thrown from a bridge in 1381, and drowned by order of King Wenceslaus, because he refused to betray the secrets confided to him by the queen in the holy rite of confession. The spot whence he was cast into the Moldau is still marked by a cross with five stars on the parapet, indicative of the miraculous flames seen flickering over the dead body for three days. Nepomuk was canonized in 1729, and became the patron saint of bridges. His statue in stone usually occupies such a position on bridges as it does in Prague.
Like St. John Nep´omuck in stone, Looking down into the stream. Longfellow, The Golden Legend (1851).
*** The word is often accented on the second syllable.
Neptune (Old Father), the ocean or sea-god.