a. [f. L. Augēas, Gr. Αὐγείας: see -AN.] Abominably filthy; i.e., resembling the stable of Augeas, a fabulous king of Elis, which contained 3,000 oxen, and had been uncleansed for 30 years, when Hercules, by turning the river Alpheus through it, purified it in a single day.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, II. Proem 210. To purge this Augean oxstall from foule sinne.
1775. P. Schuyler, in Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), I. 4. I shall have an Augean stable to clean there.
1866. Alger, Solit. Nat. & Man, IV. 389. To cleanse the augean bosom of the world by turning through it a river of pure enthusiasm.
