Crossword clues for psychopomp
psychopomp
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Psychopomp \Psy"cho*pomp\, n. [Gr. ?; psychh` the soul + ? to
send: cf. F. psychopompe.] (Myth.)
A leader or guide of souls .
--J. Fiske.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1835, from Greek psykhopompos "spirit-guide," a term applied to Charon, Hermes Trismegistos, Apollo; from psykhe (see psyche) + pompos "guide, conductor."
Wiktionary
n. Someone who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
WordNet
n. a conductor of souls to the afterworld; "Hermes was their psychopomp"
Wikipedia
Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psuchopompos, literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to provide safe passage. Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, ravens, crows, owls, sparrows, and cuckoos. When seen as birds, they are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying.
"Psychopomp" is a song by Canadian rock band The Tea Party. It was released as a promotional single in Canada. The music video was shot live in the MuchMusic CHUM-City Building in Toronto, before and during their Intimate & Interactive performance in May 1998.
"Psychopomp" is a reworking of a composition called "Something More" that Jeff Burrows and Jeff Martin wrote as teenagers.
Usage examples of "psychopomp".
It is clearly the psychopomp of primeval myth, fitted and adapted with infinite deftness to its latter-day setting.
Had a bat, or a mouse, gone ahead of him, Gwalchmai would have taken it for a psychopomp guiding his soul to the underworld, but nothing moved except shadows.
Those attributes join with the idea of the dead riding on the night windthey join to make him the psychopomp, the conductor of the dead down to the Afterworld.
Why give Anubis, the Psychopomp, Guide of the Dead, the head of a jackal?
The contact with a psychopomp is so achingly personal for a Necromance.
Roof that, on a biennial basis, a psychopomp arrived to address the problem.
The psychopomp, conductor of the souls of the departed, followed his route through all the districts and provinces of the Cathedral, the circuit taking him two full years.
The psychopomp who had visited North Steeple in his courses, these long years, was a follower of the Cult of the Nameless--an ill-defined deity, the prayers to which were so general as to serve in virtually all circumstances.
What induced the psychopomp to adhere to what was regarded as a distasteful faith, North never knew, nor did he care to ask.
He and the psychopomp, though they had seen each other once every other year for over a decade, had never progressed beyond the most perfunctory of pleasantries.
North fed the psychopomp from his own larder, and housed him within his shack, as custom demanded, and all he asked in return was that the howling, stinking shades be flushed out and away.
The North Steeple would be left in silence for a season or two, at least until the concentration of revenants, eidolons, and ghosts of the dead ensnared by the architecture grew too dense again, and then North would soldier through in bitter silence until the psychopomp again appeared.
Winter Solstice, some weeks since the psychopomp last made his way to the North Steeple on his annual rounds.
The psychopomp had taken only a fortnight to clear out the shades of the dead, ushering them on their way to whatever rewards awaited them, towards whatever sphere or plane or ancestral abode their faith promised them.
After the psychopomp had gone, though, there were still revenants remaining.