Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Greek Mythology One of the nymphs who lived in and presided over brooks, springs, and fountains.
- noun The aquatic nymph of certain insects, such as a mayfly, damselfly, or dragonfly.
- noun Any of various aquatic plants of the genus Najas.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In Greek and Roman mythology, a water-nymph; a female deity presiding over springs and streams.
- noun In botany, a plant of the genus Naias; also, sometimes, any plant of the Naiadaceæ.
- noun One of the naiades or pearly fresh-water mussels; a fresh-water mollusk as distinguished from an oceanid or marine mollusk.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Myth.) A water nymph; one of the lower female divinities, fabled to preside over some body of fresh water, as a lake, river, brook, or fountain.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any species of a tribe (
Naiades ) of freshwater bivalves, including Unio, Anodonta, and numerous allied genera; a river mussel. - noun (Zoöl) One of a group of butterflies. See
Nymph . - noun (Bot.) Any plant of the order Naiadaceæ, such as eelgrass, pondweed, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Greek mythology A female
deity (nymph ) associated withwater , especially aspring ,stream , or otherfresh water . - noun entomology The
aquatic larva (nymph ) of adragonfly ordamselfly .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (Greek mythology) a nymph of lakes and springs and rivers and fountains
- noun submerged aquatic plant having narrow leaves and small flowers; of fresh or brackish water
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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She was a child of the whole world, as the naiad is the child of the river, and the oread of the mountain.
There & Back George MacDonald 1864
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I know, I had said the naiad was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, but she had been wet and dirty, and, even though she looked like she’d risen out of a Pre-Raphaelite pond, unmistakably Twenty-First Century.
To Say Nothing of the Dog Willis, Connie 1997
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The gold satin bow waved in the breeze at me, looking like a willowy naiad or dryad from Greek mythology.
Anhedonia (excerpt 2) Laura Preble 2010
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No faun, no selkie, no naiad, and the stocks of human and Centaur-in the cold-larders and in the fattening pens-were (so he said) dangerously low.
Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010
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It is easy to see how a gnat-cloud might be seen as a dancing naiad, a water sprite.
Wildwood Roger Deakin 2009
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It is easy to see how a gnat-cloud might be seen as a dancing naiad, a water sprite.
Wildwood Roger Deakin 2009
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And worse still, she's being shadowed by her ditsy twin sister -- a naiad who simply can't seem to stay out of trouble.
New Book Releases for Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Fantasy – November 3, 2009 Donna 2009
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Was there a marble fountain, which superstition had dedicated to some sequestered naiad — it was surrounded by olives, almond and orange trees — its cistern was repaired, and taught once more to retain its crystal treasures.
Anne of Geierstein 2008
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Mecistaeus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; Polypaetes,
Les Miserables 2008
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While the Bread and Circus Product Placement Olympi-ad mercifully distracts some from crashing banks, anthrax cover-ups and sub-penis envy, I am doing last minute lobbying of OOC for larger time clock numbers at the pool for my myopic 41 year old naiad shero.
fbharjo commented on the word naiad
Greek satellite of Neptune: a type of dragonfly: from Greek "to flow"
August 13, 2008