English Explanatory Dictionary

millihelen

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A unit of measurement of beauty, corresponding to the amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

Word forms

millihelen millihelens milli-Helen

Etymology

From milli- + Helen, referring to Helen of Troy, the maiden so beautiful that her abduction by Paris sparked the Trojan War and was said, in Christopher Marlowe's 1604 Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, to have "launched a thousand ships".

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