procrustes

1. 1.

   (Greek mythology) a mythical giant who was a thief and murderer; he would capture people and tie them to an iron bed, stretching them or hacking off their legs to make them fit; was killed by Theseus

   Broadermythical being

   Greek mythology

Other forms of procrustes

plural

procrusteses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about procrustes

What does procrustes mean?

procrustes means "(Greek mythology) a mythical giant who was a thief and murderer; he would capture people and tie them to an iron bed, stretching them or hacking off their legs to make them fit; was killed by Theseus".

How many syllables are in procrustes?

procrustes has 2 syllables: procru-stes. The stress falls on "procru".

Is procrustes a common word?

procrustes is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.