Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of harpy.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Then we have the twin harpies, Palin & Bachmann, who are far more interested in celebrity than sound politics.

    Think Progress » ThinkFast: April 7, 2010 2010

  • For if this myth of the harpies were a reality, what of the other legends -- the Hydra, the centaurs, the chimera, Medusa, Pan and the satyrs?

    Wings in the Night Howard, Robert E. 2006

  • The news spread rapidly -- it generally does, on the death of a peer, if he had been of note (whether good or bad) in the world -- and was known in London before the day was over; the consequence of which was, that by Saturday morning early a shoal of what the late peer would have called harpies had arrived to surround East Lynne.

    East Lynne, or, The Earl's Daughter 1864

  • It generally does on the death of a peer, if he has been of note, whether good or bad, in the world, and was known in London before the day was over -- the consequence of which was, that by Saturday morning, early, a shoal of what the late peer would have called harpies, had arrived, to surround East Lynne.

    East Lynne Henry Wood 1850

  • Moreover, when they had lost their charters, those po - etical birds called harpies became really existent, and visited these flocks, not so much that tliey might build nests of their own, as plunder and pull down the nests of others.

    Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1792

  • Seriously, this is the same person who referred to the Jersey Girls -- four 9/11 widows who had criticized the Bush administration -- as "harpies" who were enjoying their husbands 'deaths.

    Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer: Media Drunk Tank: Officer O'Reilly 2009

  • Carmichael's the usual handsome dud one expects in these kind of romances, but at least there's a great scene where, after discovering that Mary is actually one of the "harpies" of San Francisco who lures men to give up their gold, the two wayward lovers engage in some spiteful, sharp-tongued repartee across a roulette table.

    Barbary Coast Ed Howard 2009

  • Her claim that 9/11 widows are "harpies" and "witches" that joyously revel in their husbands 'deaths is so inhuman that it makes me depressed just to repeat it.

    I will rearrange your scales, if I can 2006

  • Her claim that 9/11 widows are "harpies" and "witches" that joyously revel in their husbands 'deaths is so inhuman that it makes me depressed just to repeat it.

    this little piggy made me puke 2006

  • Nay, it was usual to send for people by pursuivants, a kind of harpies who then attended the orders of the council and high commission; and they were brought up to London, and constrained by imprisonment, not only to withdraw their lawful suits, but also to pay the pursuivants great sums of money.

    The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. From Elizabeth to James I. David Hume 1743

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