HE'RO, noun [Latin heros; Gr. a demigod.]
1. A man of distinguished valor, intrepidity or enterprise in danger; as a hero in arms.
2. A great, illustrious or extraordinary person; as a hero in learning. [Little Used.]
3. In a poem, or romance, the principal personage, or the person who has the principal share in the transactions related; as Achilles in the Iliad, Ulysses in the Odyssey, and Aeneas in the Aeneid.
4. In pagan mythology, a hero was an illustrious person, mortal indeed, but supposed by the populace to partake of immortality, and after his death to be placed among the gods.