chthonicadj.

1882 C. F. Keary Outl. Primitive Belief v. 215 The chthonic divinity was essentially a god of the regions under the earth; at first of the dark home of the seed, later on of the still darker home of the dead.

1885 19th Cent. Dec. 920 The original chthonic character of the wife of Zeus.

1903 Daily Chron. 29 Dec. 3/3 Two great and contrasted forms of ritual—the Olympian and the Chthonic, the one a ritual of cheerful..character, the other a ritual of gloom, and fostering superstition.

1941 T. S. Eliot Dry Salvages v. 15 Driven by dæmonic, chthonic Powers.

1957 V. G. Childe Dawn European Civilization (ed. 6) xviii. 331 The invaders..patronized native cults or gave them a new celestial, rather than chthonic, orientation.

1922 T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars (Oxford text) lxvii. 148 We..wrote books about their architecture, their folklore, their dying industries. One day we woke up to find this chthonic [printed ehthonic] spirit turned political.

1928 H. G. Baynes & C. F. Baynes tr. C. G. Jung Contrib. Analyt. Psychol. 118 The chthonic portion of the mind—if we may use this expression—that portion through which the mind is linked to nature, or in which, at least, its relatedness to the earth and the universe seems most comprehensible.

1963 M. McCarthy Group vi. 129 The chthonic imagery of Norine's apartment, which..was black as a coalhole and heated by the furnace of the hostess' unslaked desires.