a Greek epic poem (attributed to Homer) describing the siege of Troy
A famous ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War, attributed to Homer.
Any long tragic story.
Origin: From Ἰλιάς, the poem about Ἴλιον, an alternate name for Troy.
The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war, and related concerns tend to appear near the beginning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' looming death and the sack of Troy, prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly, so that when it reaches an end, the poem has told a more or less complete tale of the Trojan War. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer. Along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution has found it to date to 760–710 BC. In the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines; it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
il′i-ad, n. an epic poem by Homer, giving an account of the destruction of Ilium or ancient Troy. [L. Ilias, Iliadis—Gr. Ilias, Iliados, a poem relating to Ilium, the city of Ilos, its founder.]
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
the great epic poem of Homer, consisting of 24 books, the subject of which is the "wrath of Achilles" (q. v.), and the events which followed during the last year of the ten years' Trojan War, so called from Ilion, one of the names of Troy. See Ilium.
The numerical value of iliad in Chaldean Numerology is: 1
The numerical value of iliad in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
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