Harpy

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Greek Mythology One of several loathsome, voracious monsters with the head and trunk of a woman and the tail, wings, and talons of a bird.
2. n. A predatory person.
3. n. A shrewish woman.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Greek myth, a winged monster, ravenous and filthy, having the face and body of a woman and the wings of a bird of prey, with the feet and fingers armed with sharp claws and the face pale with hunger, serving as a minister of divine vengeance, and defiling everything it touched. The harpies were commonly regarded either as two (Aëllo and Ocypete) or three in number, but occasionally several others are mentioned. They were originally conceived of simply as storm-winds sent by the gods to carry off offenders, and were later personified as fair-haired winged maidens, their features and characteristics being more or less repulsive at different times and places. The harpies have been to some extent confounded by modern scholars with the sirens, which, though of kindred origin, were goddesses of melody, even if of a sweetness that was harmful to mankind, and were represented as women in the upper parts of their bodies and as birds below.
2. n. Hence A rapacious, grasping person; one who is repulsively greedy and unfeeling.
3. n. In ornithology: The harpy-eagle.
4. n. An English book-name of the marsh-harrier or moor-buzzard, Circus æruginosus. Also called white - headed harpy.
5. n. In mammalogy, a fruit-bat of the genus Harpyia.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Gr. Myth.) A fabulous winged monster, ravenous and filthy, having the face of a woman and the body of a vulture, with long claws, and the face pale with hunger. Some writers mention two, others three.
2. n. One who is rapacious or ravenous; an extortioner.
3. n. The European moor buzzard or marsh harrier (Circus æruginosus).
4. n. A large and powerful, double-crested, short-winged American eagle (Thrasaëtus harpyia). It ranges from Texas to Brazil.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of various fruit bats of the genus Nyctimene distinguished by nostrils drawn out into diverging tubes
2. n. large black-and-white crested eagle of tropical America
3. n. a malicious woman with a fierce temper
4. n. (Greek mythology) vicious winged monster; often depicted as a bird with the head of a woman