python

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various nonvenomous snakes of the family Pythonidae, found chiefly in Asia, Africa, and Australia, that coil around and suffocate their prey. Pythons often attain lengths of 6 meters (20 feet) or more.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In classical antiquities and in the New Testament, a soothsaying spirit or demon; hence, also, a person possessed by such a spirit; especially, a ventriloquist. Some ancient writers speak of the serpent Python as having delivered oracles at Delphi before the coming of Apollo, and during the Roman imperial period we find the name often given to soothsayers. The spirit was supposed to speak from the belly of the sooth-sayer, who was accordingly called ἐγγαστρίμυθος, a ventriloquist, a word used in the Septuagint to represent the Hebrew 'ōbh (see ob), often rendered python in the Vulgate. In Acts xvi. 16 the usual reading is ‘a spirit of Python,’ while some manuscripts read ‘a spirit, a Python.’
2. n. [lowercase] Any very large serpent, as a rock-snake: loosely used, like boa and anaconda, but properly applicable only to the large Old World non-venomous serpents of the family Pythonidæ.
3. n. The typical genus of Pythonidæ: formerly conterminous with the family, now restricted to species having premaxillary teeth, labial plates of both jaws fossate, and scuta extending to between the orbits. These are the rock-snakes proper, as P. molurus and P. reticulatus. See cut under Pythonidæ, also cuts under Ophidia, zygantrum, and zygosphene.

Wiktionary

1. n. A type of large constricting snake.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) Any species of very large snakes of the genus Python, and allied genera, of the family Pythonidæ. They are nearly allied to the boas. Called also rock snake.
2. n. A diviner by spirits.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (Greek mythology) dragon killed by Apollo at Delphi
2. n. large Old World boas
3. n. a soothsaying spirit or a person who is possessed by such a spirit