Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) An illustrious man, supposed to be exalted, after death, to a place among the gods; a demigod, as Hercules.

2. (n.) A man of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or fortitude in suffering; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person.

3. (n.) The principal personage in a poem, story, and the like, 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.