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Sisyphean vs Herculean - What's the difference?

sisyphean | herculean |

As adjectives the difference between sisyphean and herculean

is that sisyphean is incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile while Herculean is of extraordinary might, power, size, etc.; of or relating to Hercules in size or strength.

sisyphean

English

Alternative forms

* Sisyphusean * sisyphean * sysyphean

Adjective

(wikipedia Sisyphean) (-)
  • Incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= A new prescription , passage=As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
  • Relating to Sisyphus.

    • Quotations

    * (Edith Wharton) (1862–1937), *: The Sisyphean load of little lives,\\Becomes the globe and sceptre of the great. * 1959 , (Leo Strauss), What Is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies *: In spite of its highness or nobility, it [philosophy] could appear as Sisyphean or ugly, when one contrasts its achievement with its goal. * 2006 , Hannah Tucker, (Entertainment Weekly) , no. 888 (28 July), p. 50 *: Rob Paulsen won an Emmy as the voice of Pinky, who was responsible for supporting Brain (Maurice LaMarche) in his Sisyphean quest for world domination *"How Life Imitates Chess" by Garry Kasparov, Bloomsbury USA publishing, 2007/2008: pg. 145 (Chapter 12, "The Inner Game"): "You can't overestimate the importance of psychology in chess, and as much as some players try to downplay it, I believe that winning requires a constant and strong psychology not just at the board but in every aspect of your life...It begins with intense preparation, which requires that you motivate yourself to work long, grueling, lonely hours. It often feels like a Sisyphean task, since you know that perhaps only ten percent of your analysis will ever see the light of day."

    Synonyms

    * (recurring but futile): like herding cats

    herculean

    English

    Alternative forms

    * * herculean

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of extraordinary might, power, size, etc.; of or relating to Hercules in size or strength.
  • * 1607 , Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, i 3 :
    • But this is not the best:--look, pr'ythee, Charmian, / How this Herculean Roman does become / The carriage of his chafe.
  • * (rfdate) :
    • It was truly a Herculean effort. I never thought it was going to happen, but it did.
  • Requiring a huge amount of work; of extraordinary difficulty.
    • a Herculean''' labour'', ''a '''Herculean task
  • * 1748, Tobias George Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random
    • He replied in a dry manner, that I would find it a Herculean task to chastise everybody who should laugh at my expense;
  • * 2006 : Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear , commenting on the Bugatti Veyron
    • The guys at Volkswagen have a Herculean task.