Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Greek & Roman Mythology A wood nymph who lives only as long as the tree of which she is the spirit lives.
- n. See king cobra.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In Greek myth, a wood-nymph believed to live and die with the tree to which she was attached.
- n. In entomology: A dryad or wood-nymph, a butterfly of the old genus Hamadryas.
- n. plural A group of lepidopterous insects.
- n. In herpetology, a large, hooded, venomous Indian serpent, Naja hamadryas or Hamadryas elaps, now Ophiophagus elaps. It is related to the cobra.
- n. In mammalogy, a large Abyssinian baboon, Cynocephalus hamadryas, with long mane and whiskers and tufted tail. Also called hebe.
Wiktionary
- n. Greek mythology A wood-nymph who was physically a part of her tree; fell the tree, kill the nymph.
- n. The king cobra.
- n. A kind of baboon, Papio hamadryas, venerated by the ancient Egyptians.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Class. Myth.) A tree nymph whose life ended with that of the particular tree, usually an oak, which had been her abode.
- n. (Zoöl.) A large venomous East Indian snake (Ophiophagus bungarus), allied to the cobras.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the nymph or spirit of a particular tree
- n. large cobra of southeastern Asia and the East Indies; the largest venomous snake; sometimes placed in genus Naja
Etymologies
- Latin Hamadryas, from Ancient Greek Ἁμαδρυάς, from ἅμα ("together") + δρῦς ("tree"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English amadriad, from Latin Hamadryas, Hamadryad-, from Greek Hamadruas : hama, together with; see sem-1 in Indo-European roots + Druas, dryad (from drūs, oak; see deru- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So in some vague way Charlie felt he had to go and say that to the tree, as if his father lived hi it like a god damned hamadryad or something; he found it very embarrassing to remember the thing at all, but he remembered, he remembered.”
Fictionaut: Arcana Magi - c.1: Oryn Zentharis, Seeker of the Truth
“Not only does it happen in poetry, but common people often go farther than the poet and begin believing in the hamadryad in the wood or the spirit of the waters.”
“The dread hamadryad leered at him; poisonous toads and lizards scurried for cover.”
The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy A Book for Young and Old
“In the pale, elusive moonlight, and with that startled poise of figure, she might well have been the hamadryad at bay of one of her most famous dances.”
“The poet's hamadryad and naiad, what are they, indeed, but cobwebby fictions, which must be brushed away if ideal truth is to be revealed?”
“There was about Hazlitt's wooing of Rachel the pathos which might distinguish the love affair of a Baptist angel and the hamadryad daughter of a Babayaga.”
“This hamadryad was destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in the number of eggs the hens were laying, she would even have assured her children, precisely in the way her father spoke of John Hughes, that young people ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational elders agree to disregard.”
“The hamadryad, as you probably know, is perhaps the deadliest of all Eastern reptiles.”
“His informant was a hamadryad, whom Jurgen encountered upon the outskirts of a forest overlooking the city from the west.”
“Into the uneventful life of a hamadryad, here in this uncultured forest, could not possibly have entered much pleasurable excitement, and it seemed only right to inject a little.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hamadryad’.
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
Greek to me
Gordian knot, Proteus, sisyphean, eudemonia, glossolalia, hemorrhage, hamadryad, aphotic, tautogeneity, anthropomorphism, polygamy, polygyny and 37 more...
-
list01
I HEART MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!
clitoridectomy, pneumonoultramicr..., deipnosophist, zenana, quadragintesimal, lampadedromy, fundus, karyokinesis, machicolation, plasmapherisis, entomophagous, oxyopia and 36 more...
-
Ecology
apishamore, argonaut, latent, unbacked, dichotomy, noctilucent, assoil, animalcule, succinct, vespertine, crozzle, vermilion and 15 more...
-
I keep forgetting
Words I keep looking up and still keep forgetting the definition of
reify, phthisic, taghairm, makar, sciamachy, chevelure, smaragdine, vicinal, rixatrix, polynya, hamadryad, cloud-built and 5 more...
-
Not quite love
prolix, pleonastic, senescence, autochthonous, loup, pronk, onomatopoeia, magisterial, rixatrix, esurient, blowsabella, crapulence and 69 more...
-
♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
-
wakcy's Words
apocalypse, interlude, drome, absolution, atrocity, ruse, pristine, mason, reparable, deteriorate, pyramid, hipster and 283 more...
-
Papageno's Words, Pt. II
cicurate, circumforaneous, codger, comiconomenclaturist, constable, contradistinction, contraindicated, counterpane, coxcomb, decalcomania, decanal, decoction and 307 more...
-
Words Covered in Faery Dust (H)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
haberdashery, hailstone, halcyon, halibut, halo, hamadryad, hammock, harangue, harbour, harebell, harlequin, harp and 104 more...
-
It's a Lepidopteran
Names of butterflies and moths that I find interesting, and terms associated with citizens of Lepidoptera.
Here are elfins, satyrs and wood-nymphs ruled by some sovereign such as an em...clearwing, whitespot, miller, underwing, lettuce-shark, owlet, gamma, fanfoot, mason moth, mought, goldtail, noctuid and 132 more...
-
ars poetica
liminal, threshold, grommet, tremulous, strident, hamadryad, balm
-
NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
-
sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
-
bosporian's Words
corybantiasm, delphic, oneiromancy, bibliothecary, wyrd, lygophilia, cimmerian, agathodaemon, crepuscular, ignosis, peisithanatos, alpenglow and 94 more...
-
Ships
All of which are mentioned in O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, someplace or other. Most are British navy ships, some are French navy, and others aren't either one.
See also the list Sh...franklin, surprise, agamemnon, vanguard, truelove, minerva, diane, victory, sophie, cacafuego, euryalus, alastor and 382 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hamadryad.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.