Pygmalion
/pɪɡˈmeɪliən/
/pɪɡˈmeɪliən/
- a comic play (1913) by George Bernard Shaw about a professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches a young cockneyflower girl, Eliza Doolittle, how to speak in an upper-class way. She becomes a success in society and falls in love with Higgins. The play was made into a successful musical comedy and a film called My Fair Lady. Shaw took his title from an ancient Greek story about Pygmalion, an artist who falls in love with a statue he has created. The philologist Henry Sweet (1845-1912) is thought to be the model for Higgins.
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Pygmalion