odyssey

noun

od·​ys·​sey ˈä-də-sē 

plural odysseys

1

: a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune

his odyssey from rural South to urban North, from poverty to affluence, from Afro-American folk culture to a Eurocentric world of books

—J. E. Wideman

2

: an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest

an odyssey of self-discovery

a spiritual odyssey from disbelief to faith

Did you know?

Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey, spends 20 years traveling home from the Trojan War. He has astonishing adventures and learns a great deal about himself and the world; he even descends to the underworld to talk to the dead. Thus, an odyssey is any long, complicated journey, often a quest for a goal, and may be a spiritual or psychological journey as well as an actual voyage.

Examples of odyssey in a Sentence

The story is about the emotional odyssey experienced by a teenage girl.

the spiritual odyssey of the deeply religious

Recent Examples on the Web

The story follows a musician plagued by insomnia who is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence. —Matt Grobar, Deadline, 3 Feb. 2025

The medical odyssey began last January when royal officials announced that the king, 76, would receive treatment for an enlarged prostate and his daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, would undergo abdominal surgery. —Stephanie Nolasco, Fox News, 30 Jan. 2025

The odyssey that the insomniac undergoes every night, passing from bedroom to living room and back again, is, in a curious way, a parody of sleep, as Walker depicts it, with a conscious architecture of its own. —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 20 Jan. 2025

League Pass blackouts and the collapse of cable have made an odyssey of watching your local team, so below is our best effort to make sense of it all. —Steven Louis Goldstein, The Athletic, 6 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

the Odyssey, epic poem attributed to Homer recounting the long wanderings of Odysseus

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

odyssey

noun

od·​ys·​sey ˈäd-ə-sē 

plural odysseys

: a long wandering or series of travels

Etymology

named for the Odyssey, a long poem from ancient Greece telling the story of the 10-year wanderings of Odysseus, a Greek hero and king