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millihelen
English
Etymology
From the SI prefix milli- (indicating a thousandth) + Helen, of Troy, the maiden so beautiful that her abduction by Paris sparked the Trojan War and was said, in Christopher Marlowe’s 1604 Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, to have ‘launched a thousand ships’.
Noun
millihelen (plural millihelens)
(informal) A unit of measure of pulchritude, corresponding to the amount of beauty required to launch one ship. [quotations ▼]
Usage notes
According to Raymond Augustine Bauer and Kenneth J. Gergen (The Study of Policy Formation, 1968), ‘one could also speak of fractional millihelens, say, enough beauty to launch two cabin boys’.
millihelen - Wiktionary
