mentor [M18th] In Homer’s Odyssey the goddess Athene appears to Odysseus’ son Telemachus in the form of someone called Mentor and acts as his guide and adviser. The name may mean ‘adviser, counsel’ and be related to *mind. In 1699 the French author François Fénelon published a book called Les Aventures de Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus), one of the most popular political novels of the time, which was translated into English almost immediately, as well as into other languages, and it is from this novel that we get our modern use.