Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope was made immortal by Circe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The typical genus of Penelopinæ, founded by B. Merrem in 1786, containing a number of South and Central American species of birds, such as P. marail, called guans.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • proper noun (Zoöl.) A genus of curassows, including the guans.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Greek mythology The faithful wife of Odysseus.
  • proper noun A female given name.
  • proper noun A taxonomic genus within the family Cracidae.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Greek mythology) the wife of Odysseus and a symbol of devotion and fidelity; for 10 years while Odysseus fought the Trojan War she resisted numerous suitors until Odysseus returned and killed them
  • noun a genus of guans (turkey-like arboreal birds valued as game and food birds)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek Πηνελόπη, possibly from πηνέλοψ (pēnelops), “duck”.

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