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  1. centaur love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Greek Mythology One of a race of monsters having the head, arms, and trunk of a man and the body and legs of a horse.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In Greek myth, a monster, half man and half horse, descended from Ixion and Nephele, the cloud. The myth is probably of Eastern origin. The centaurs, supposed to have inhabited Thessaly, were rude and savage beings, embodying the destructive and ungovernable forces of nature. Chiron, the wise instructor of Achilles, and Pholus, the friend of Hercules, were beneficent centaurs. In art the centaur was originally represented as a complete man, to whose body were attached, behind, the barrel and hind quarters of a horse; later this ungainly combination was abandoned, and was universally replaced by the form in which the human body to the waist took the place of the head and neck of the horse. Examples of the primitive type of centaur survive on archaic painted vases, in a few small bronzes, terra-cottas, etc., among the reliefs from the temple of Assos, and in certain wall-paintings.
  2. n. The constellation Centaurus.
  3. n. In heraldry See sagittary.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Greek mythology A mythical beast having a horse's body with a human head and torso in place of the head and neck of the horse.
  2. n. astronomy An icy planetoid that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune (also capitalized).

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Class. Myth.) A fabulous being, represented as half man and half horse.
  2. n. (Astron.) A constellation in the southern heavens between Hydra and the Southern Cross.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a conspicuous constellation in the southern hemisphere near the Southern Cross
  2. n. (classical mythology) a mythical being that is half man and half horse

Etymologies

  1. From Latin centaurus, from Ancient Greek κένταυρος (kentauros), from Κένταυρος (Kentauros, "a member of a savage race from Thessaly"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, from Latin Centaurus, from Greek Kentauros. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “˜Some centaur does not have a tail™ to be contradictories, but both to be false because the subject-term ˜centaur™ is empty.”

    Stanisław Leśniewski

  • “It's possible; a centaur is half-man, half-horse, and you can see what part of the horse they used to make it, and Mr. Cheney certainly has those qualities.”

    Dick Cheney, the Unique Creature

  • “He that thinks the name centaur stands for some real being, imposes on himself, and mistakes words for things.”

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  • “But it is not in that metaphysical sense of truth which we inquire here, when we examine, whether our ideas are capable of being true or false, but in the more ordinary acceptation of those words: and so I say that the ideas in our minds, being only so many perceptions or appearances there, none of them are false; the idea of a centaur having no more falsehood in it when it appears in our minds, than the name centaur has falsehood in it, when it is pronounced by our mouths, or written on paper.”

    God, Aids & Circumcision

  • “This may sound unlucky, but believe me, if you saw the chart of options for type-of-animal-into-which-your-soul-may-be-reborn you would realise that a centaur is waaay better than, say, a marmot.)”

    Escapism.

  • “Behind the centaur was a man with orange and black tiger fur streaking his face.”

    Simon & Schuster: Enchanted Ivy

  • “The centaur was a harsh taskmistress - which was of course why she had been given the job.”

    Fictionaut: Labor Policy

  • “    "Lieutenant," called the centaur, moving into the cleared street, barely avoiding a "mistaken" swing of a withering staff wielded by an angry guardsman.”

    Odyssey

  • “Lieutenant," called the centaur, moving into the cleared street, barely avoiding a "mistaken" swing of a withering staff wielded by an angry guardsman.”

    Odyssey

  • “The centaur was a regular creature, of course-but only in mythology relating to Mundania did animals like bears and lions and swans exist Parts of them showed up in the form of sphinxes, chimerae, griffins, and inch, but that didn't really count A Mundane lion could also be reckoned as the body of a griffin with the head of an ant lion, a composite deriving from the Xanth originals.”

    The Source of Magic

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synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. hippocentaur

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. constellation

same context (13)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. ogre
  2. unicorn
  1. goblin
  2. griffin
  1. elf
  2. mermaid
  1. stallion
  2. dragon
  1. drow
  2. troll
  1. Gypsy
  2. mare
  1. roan

rhymes (2)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Mentor
  1. mentor

reverse dictionary (17)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. Chiron
  2. hippocentaur
  3. centauresque
  1. centauric
  2. sagittary
  3. onocentaur
  1. centaurdom
  2. centauress
  3. centaurian
  1. centaurize
  2. monster
  3. Sagittarius
  1. bucentaur
  2. Centaurus
  3. chameleon
  1. Lupus
  2. horse

tags (9)

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  1. updike
  1. 74 guns
  1. 130 men
  1. 20 guns
  1. sixth rate
  1. ship of the line
  1. french ship
  1. british ship
  1. narnia

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‘centaur’ has been looked up 2211 times, loved by 1 person, added to 37 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 9.