Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various nonvenomous snakes of the family Pythonidae, found chiefly in Asia, Africa, and Australia, that coil around and asphyxiate their prey. Some pythons can attain lengths of 8 meters (26 feet) or more.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun [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.
  • noun 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (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.
  • noun A diviner by spirits.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A type of large constricting snake.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Greek mythology) dragon killed by Apollo at Delphi
  • noun large Old World boas
  • noun a soothsaying spirit or a person who is possessed by such a spirit

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably French, from Latin Pȳthōn, mythical serpent killed by Apollo near Delphi; see Python.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek Πύθων (Puthōn), the name of the mythological enormous serpent at Delphi slain by Apollo, from Πυθώ (Pūthō), the early name of Delphi, from πυθώ (puthō, "to rot, to decay").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word python.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • From Greek mythology

    "earth-dragon of Delphi"

    (Wikipedia)

    January 21, 2008

  • There is also a very neat computer scripting language by the name of python.

    July 15, 2008