salamander

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various small lizardlike amphibians of the order Caudata, having porous scaleless skin and four, often weak or rudimentary legs.
2. n. A mythical creature, generally resembling a lizard, believed capable of living in or withstanding fire.
3. n. In the occult philosophy of Paracelsus, a being having fire as its element.
4. n. An object, such as a poker, used in fire or capable of withstanding heat.
5. n. Metallurgy A mass of solidified material, largely metallic, left in a blast-furnace hearth.
6. n. A portable stove used to heat or dry buildings under construction.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A kind of lizard or other reptile formerly supposed to live in or be able to endure fire.
2. n. An imaginary or immaterial being of human form living in fire; an elemental of the fire; that one of the four classes of nature-spirits which corresponds to the element fire, the others being called sylphs, undines, and gnomes.
3. n. In zoology, a urodele batrachian, or tailed amphibian; a newt or an eft; a triton; especially, a terrestrial batrachian of this kind, not having the tail compressed like a fin, as distinguished from one of the aquatic kinds especially called newts or tritons; specifically, a member of the restricted family Salamandridæ. (See Salamandra.) It is a name of loose and comprehensive use. The two kinds of salamanders above noted are sometimes distinguished as land- and water-salamanders. All are harmless, timid creatures, with four legs and a tail, resembling lizards, but naked instead of scaly, and otherwise quite different from any lacertilians. The species are very numerous, representing many genera and several families of Urodela, and are found in most parts of the northern hemisphere, in brooks and ponds, and moist places on land. They are mostly small, a few inches long, but some, as the menopome, menobranch, hellbender, mudpuppy, etc., of America, attain a length of a foot or more, and the giant salamander of Japan, Megalobatrachus giganteus, is some 3 feet long. See also cuts under axolotl, hellbender, Menobranchus, newt, and Salamandra.
4. n. In heraldry, the representation of a four-legged creature with a long tail, surrounded by flames of fire. It is a modern bearing, and the flames are usually drawn in a realistic way.
5. n. The pocket-gopher of the South Atlantic and Mexican Gulf States, Geomys tuza or G. pinetis, a rodent mammal.
6. n. Same as bear, 7.
7. n. Anything used in connection with the fire, or useful only when very hot, as a culinary vessel, a poker, an iron used red-hot to ignite gunpowder, and the like.
8. n. A fire-proof safe.
9. n. A wire basket in which waste paper or other combustible refuse can be gathered by street-cleaners, and in which such waste can be burned.
10. n. A mass of solidified and infusible material in an iron blast- or other smelting-furnace hearth. It usually consists of wrought-iron.

Wiktionary

1. n. A long slender (usually) terrestrial amphibian, resembling a lizard and newt; taxonomic order Urodela
2. n. mythology A creature much like a lizard that is resistant to and lives in fire, hence the elemental being of fire.
3. n. cooking A metal utensil with a flat head which is heated and put over a dish to brown the top.
4. n. cooking In a professional kitchen a small broiler, used primarily for browning.
5. v. To apply a salamander (flat iron utensil above) in a cooking process.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of Urodela, belonging to Salamandra, Amblystoma, Plethodon, and various allied genera, especially those that are more or less terrestrial in their habits.
2. n. (Zoöl.) The pouched gopher (Geomys tuza) of the Southern United States.
3. n. A culinary utensil of metal with a plate or disk which is heated, and held over pastry, etc., to brown it.
4. n. Prov. Eng. A large poker.
5. n. (Metal.) Solidified material in a furnace hearth.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. fire iron consisting of a metal rod with a handle; used to stir a fire
2. n. reptilian creature supposed to live in fire
3. n. any of various typically terrestrial amphibians that resemble lizards and that return to water only to breed