harpy

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“
She used gossip and lies and she behaved like the stereotypical "harpy" -- she didn't just embarrass herself, she embarrassed all feminists and the movement itself.

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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 (50)

  • This talent absolutely disgusted the harpy, and she finally took the Autoharp into the deepest forest and left him there, hopelessly lost. —  The Dastard
  • The mermaids had represented much that was lovely in the female form; this harpy was the ugly aspect. —  A Spell for Chameleon
  • She was almost as ugly as the harpy, but she too was amazingly polite. —  The Source of Magic
  • I couldn't smell the normally foul odor, so I lingered longer than I should have and suddenly realized that this harpy was young and clean and male. —  Dragon on a Pedestal
  • Esmerelda Fine might sing like a harpy, but she played the violin like an angel. —  NOBODY'S DARLING
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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)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  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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