tantalus

IPA: tˈæntʌɫʌs

A stork of the genus Mycteria (formerly Tantalus), especially the American wood stork, Mycteria americana.
A stand in which to lock up drink decanters while keeping them visible.
Something of an evasive or retreating nature, something consistently out of reach; a tantalising thing.
(Greek mythology) A Phrygian king who was condemned to remain in Tartarus, chin-deep in water, with fruit-laden branches hanging above his head; whenever he tried to drink or eat, the water and fruit receded out of reach.

Examples of "tantalus" in Sentences

Carstairs made a gesture towards the tantalus on the table.
On the table, beside the lamp, was a tantalus and a glass, and a half empty syphon.
Julian went to the tantalus on the sideboard and poured himself a brandy to steady his nerves.
Visually quartering the room, he located the tantalus, crossed to it, poured a large measure of brandy into a crystal glass.
He towed her across the room, paused beside his desk to thrust the signal flags into a drawer, then towed her farther — to the tantalus.
The Dumbocrats should run campaign adds featuring Pat Boone's Fruit-of-the-Loom commercials from the '70's and ask rhetorically, who is the "treat"? tantalus wrote on November 5, 2007 6: 41 AM:
A tantalus containing three kinds of spirit, all of a liqueur excellence, stood always on this table of luxury; but the fanciful have asserted that the whisky, brandy, and rum seemed always to stand at the same level.
The most common primate recorded by Barber et al. was baboon Papio anubis, with lower numbers of patas and tantalus monkeys (Cercopithecus patas and C. tantalus), and low numbers of black and white colobus monkeys Colobus guereza in the dry forest.
The groaning trees, tossed by the tempest, flung off showers of half-frozen flakes, that falling on her flaming cheeks failed to cool the fever of her suspense, while the yielding snow beneath her feet became a tantalus path, delaying her advance, and seeming to make more distant her suffering child.