Home › Glossary › Letter P

Plutonian

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

Relating to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld; in poetry, "Plutonian" suggests darkness, death, the infernal, and the unyielding forces of the grave, as famously invoked by Edgar Allan Poe.

Detailed Definition
Plutonian refers to Pluto and, by extension, to the underworld or the realm of the dead. In Poe’s poem it gives the Raven’s setting a dark, death-haunted, mythic quality.
Example
Example in poetry:
Poe’s raven comes “from the Night’s Plutonian shore,” invoking Pluto’s underworld; Plutonian describes what belongs to Pluto, death, or the realm below; “A Plutonian wind crossed the graveyard,” gives a scene infernal darkness; In science writing, Plutonian can also mean relating to deep igneous rock or Pluto
Additional Notes
"Plutonian" in the quoted line is a mythological adjective tied to Pluto, so readers may need to identify the reference.; Found in the poem, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
Also Known As
infernal otherworldly cosmic abyssal
Skip to main content