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.

—John Edgar 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 10 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

Karl Bushby was taking the final steps Monday of his 28-year odyssey to walk around the world and return to his mother's home in Northern England. — ABC News, 2 Nov. 2026

For 28 years and one day, Karl Bushby took the long way home on an epic odyssey of human endurance back to northern England. — Ramy Inocencio, CBS News, 2 Nov. 2026

This is the final sprint of the Paxton campaign, a frenetic bus odyssey dubbed the Come and Take It Tour. — Aidan McLaughlin, Vanity Fair, 30 Oct. 2026

So last year, Aren traveled nearly 200 miles north into Georgia where his three-legged odyssey was captured on a trail camera. — Eric Niiler, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2026

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

Rhymes for odyssey

• geodesy

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