Definition of "Cynthia"

Cynthia

/ˈsɪnθiə/

proper noun
plural Cynthias
1. Artemis (Greek goddess).
2. (literary) The Moon.
  Quotations
  As when faire Cynthia, in darkesome night, / Is in a noyous cloud enveloped [...].
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
  [...] Cynthia's shining orb was made / Heav'n to clear when day did close [...].
  1601, Ben Jonson, Hymn to Diana
3. A female given name from Ancient Greek.
  Quotations
  “Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for poetry, not for daily use.”
  1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 10, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866
  Cynthia, the domestic-minded, looked as dashing as a young commando. It was a pity that her spelling was so bad, but perhaps there was something Elizabethan about her spelling as well as about her name.
  1978, Graham Greene, The Human Factor, page 59