Adonis -
(Greek mythology) a handsome youth loved by both Aphrodite and Persephone; "when Adonis died Zeus decreed that he should spend winters in the underworld with Persephone and spend summers with Aphrodite"
Adonis (Greek Αδωνις, Adōnis, "lord"), is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who entered Greek mythology. He is closely related to the Cypriot Gauas or Aos, Egyptian Osiris, the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as revealed in a fragment of Sappho's surviving poetry.
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adonis A genus of about 20-30 species of flowering plants of the family Ranunculaceae, native to Europe and Asia.
adonis A figure of West Semitic origin, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who enters Greek mythology in Hellenistic times.
