harpy

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Somewhere along the way to becoming an utter hag-harpy, a harridan-nag is a harlot-houri-whore the incubus kind of mare.

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Definitions (11)

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  1. 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. For having caught her Joseph all alone, She Harpie-like clap'd one bold tallon fast. J. Beaumont, Psyche, i. 227. These prodigies [visions] … unspeakable, Abominable, strangers at my hearth Not welcome, harpies miring every dish. Tennyson, Lucretius.
  2. Hence A rapacious, grasping person; one who is repulsively greedy and unfeeling. I will … do you any embassage … rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. Shak., Much Ado, ii. 1. A company of irreligious harpies, scraping, griping catchpoles. Burton, Anat. of Mel., To the Reader, p. 54.
  3. In ornithology: The harpy-eagle.
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Examples

  • Somewhere along the way to becoming an utter hag-harpy, a harridan-nag is a harlot-houri-whore the incubus kind of mare. —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VII No 4
  • He would never of his own choice have taken up with a woman who could turn harpy, and whose body even in her human state was fashioned of metal and plastic, but his experience had shown him better. —  Phaze Doubt
  • Afoot, unable to spread her wings, the harpy was at a disadvantage, and had to retreat. —  Castle Roogna
  • As I said, the harpy was a step ahead of us there, too. —  Yasmine Galenorn - [Sisters of the Moon 1] - Witchling
  • "You and the harpy are the same individual?" —  Phaze Doubt
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

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  1. Early modern English harpie, from Old French harpie, harpye, from Latin harpyia, usually in plural harpyiæ, from Greek ἁρπυιαι, plural, the harpies, literally ‘the snatchers,’ in Homer a personification of whirlwinds or hurricanes, in later mythology hideous winged creatures (see def. 1); cf. ἂρπη, a certain bird of prey; from ἁρπ-άζ-ειν, snatch, seize, = Latin rapere, snatch, seize: see rap, rapture.
 

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