acherontic

Of, pertaining to or resembling Acheron (one of the rivers located in the underworld according to ancient Greek mythology).

It was a Comedy, to see what a crowding (as if it had bene at a newe Play,) there was vpon the Acheronticque Strond,

Fierce earthquakes tear the world, the heavens bow, A passage opens to the shades below: From acherontick shores black fiends ascend,

Of or pertaining to hell.

1623, George Langford, Search the Scriptures, London: John Clarke, Section 7, p. 43, How did those Aegyptians storme, when Moses and Aaron, Crumwell and Cranmer came, to deliuer Gods Israel, from that Acheronticall ignorance?

Both sex, hideously cut, and gash, and pink in sundry works, their browes, nose, cheeks, armes, brest, back, belly, thighes and legges in Acherontick order: in a word, are so deformed, that if they had studied to become antick, they might be praised for invention.

Lacking joy and comfort; nearing death.

1599, John Weever, Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion, London: Thomas Bushell, The Thirde Weeke, Epig. 7, Depart to blacke nights Acheronticke Cell,

1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Henry Cripps, Part 3, Section 3, Member 4, Subsection 2, p. 701, […] it is most odious, when an old Acheronticke dizard, that hath one foote in his graue, shall flicker after a young wench, what can be more detestable.

Alternative form of Acherontic.