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"nymph"
Word Nerd
Act 2,
Scene 1
Lines 245-246

An explanation of the word “nymph” in Act 2, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Oberon

Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.

The word "nymph" derives from the Latin verb nūbere, to marry, and in Latin a nymph referred to a woman who was ready to marry because she had reached sexual maturity. But in English, nymph was used in a more restricted sense to refer to a class of mythological female spirits who lived in trees (dryads), rivers (naiads), the sea (nereids) or other natural locales. Oberon's using it metaphorically here, since he has discovered Helena in the forest.

(The Dryad by Evelyn De Morgan, 1885)