nisus

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Nīsus, in Greek myth, son of Pandion and king of Megara, whose life and his city's safety depended on a lock of red hair on his head. His daughter Scylla cut it off and Nisus was turned into a osprey. The port of Nisaea was named after him. Megareus, the husband of Nisus' daughter Iphinoē, gave his name to the city.

(Latin, endeavour, impulse, effort) A central element of Aristotle's theory of nature, rejected in the Renaissance, is that change and movement in nature should be thought of as the operation of a nisus or principle somewhat like aspiration, yearning, or desire, driving things to develop into what they are drawn to being. See mover, unmoved; teleology.

ni·sus n. pl. nisus An effort or endeavor to realize an aim. [Latin nisus, from past participle of niti, to strive.]^[1]

In classical mythology, Nisus (or Nisos) may refer to:

• Nisus of Nisus and Euryalus, son of Hyrtacus, lover of Euryalus, in Virgil's Aeneid
• Nisos, a king of Megara
• Silenus, also called Nisus, foster father of Dionysus
• Nissus of Dulichium, son of Aretias, father of Amphinomus, in Book 18 of Homer's The Odyssey

Nisus may also refer to:

• Nisus Writer, a word processor for the Apple Macintosh.

References

1. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. via - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nisus

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