Elagabalus

From Latin Elagabalus. The emperor is named for the deity, whose name is from an Arabic name whose elements are إِلٰه (ʔilāh, “god”) and Arabic جَبَل (jabal, “mountain”).

• (US) enPR: ĕl'əgăbʹələs, IPA^(key): /ˌɛləˈɡæbələs/[1]

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• Hyphenation: El‧a‧gab‧a‧lus[1]

Elagabalus

1. The deity Elagabal, venerated in ancient times at Emesa in Syria (and later elsewhere in the Roman Empire), identified with a large black stone.
   • 1958, Ivar Lissner, Power and Folly: The Story of the Caesars:

     Elagabalus, who was a Sun-god and the patron deity of Emesa, was worshipped   […]

   • 2019, Elias Koulakiotis, Charlotte Dunn, Political Religions in the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 111:

     Obviously, they hoped to conceal the failure of their unhappy experiment in emperorship before, when they stressed the priesthood of Syrian Emesa's main deity Elagabalus as the key factor […]

2. (Ancient Rome) The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (reigned 218–222), noted for eccentricity, femininity, decadence, and disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos.
   • 2023 November 24, Esther Addley, “Was Roman emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter?”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Racial prejudice also played a part, says Icks: before coming to Rome to rule it, Elagabalus was a priest in an obscure cult in Syria that venerated a black stone meteorite – a culture that would have been deeply strange to the Romans.

• Heliogabalus

• Heliōgabālus (with influences from Greek Ἥλιος (Hḗlios, “the Sun, a solar deity”))

The emperor/empress is named after the deity, whose name is from Classical Syriac ܐܠܗܓܒܠ (ʾĔlāhgabāl, “deity of the mountain”), possibly through Ancient Greek Ἐλᾱγάβᾱλος (Elāgábālos)

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /e.laː.ɡaˈbaː.lus/, [ɛɫ̪äːɡäˈbäːɫ̪ʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /e.la.ɡaˈba.lus/, [eläɡäˈbäːlus]

Elāgabālus m sg (genitive Elāgabālī); second declension

1. The deity Elagabal, venerated in ancient times at Emesa in Syria (and later elsewhere in the Roman Empire), identified with a large black stone.
2. The Roman emperor (or empress) Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (reigned 218–222), noted for eccentricity, femininity, decadence, and disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos.

Second-declension noun, singular only.

• → Italian: Eliogabalo