Home › Glossary › Letter A

Achelous

Mythology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

River god of Aetolia and son of Oceanus and Tethys, famed for wrestling Heracles and for his power to shape-shift into bull or serpent; in poetry he embodies the mutable, untamed force of rivers.

Detailed Definition
Achelous is one of the most prominent river gods in Greek mythology, son of Oceanus and Tethys, known for his ability to change shape—particularly into a bull or serpent. He famously wrestled Heracles for the hand of Deianira, losing one of his horns in the process. Poets invoke Achelous to symbolize the untamable force of nature, transformation, and the fluid boundaries between human and elemental realms.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Achelous, the river god, wrestles Hercules for Deianira’s hand and transforms into a serpent and then a bull; Achelous is described by Virgil in Georgics as “the greatest of rivers” flowing through Greece; In Renaissance poetry, Achelous symbolizes the untamable force of nature; Milton references Achelous in Paradise Lost as a classical river deity among pagan gods; Achelous appears in Hesiod’s Theogony as a son of Oceanus and Tethys; Poets often invoke Achelous to represent fluidity and metamorphosis in lyrical verse.
Additional Notes
Achelous is a river god in Greek mythology, often depicted as a shapeshifter who wrestled Heracles for the hand of Deianira; he symbolizes the untamable force of nature and is frequently referenced in classical poetry (e.g., Ovid’s Metamorphoses) as a figure of transformation and primal power—useful in ecopoetic or mythological contexts to evoke fluidity, resistance, or elemental struggle.
Also Known As
River God of Aetolia Horned Divinity of Waters
Skip to main content