hydra
Often Hydra .Classical Mythology. a water or marsh serpent with nine heads, each of which, if cut off, grew back as two; Hercules killed this serpent by cauterizing the necks as he cut off the heads.
any freshwater polyp of the genus Hydra and related genera, having a cylindrical body with a ring of tentacles surrounding the mouth, and usually living attached to rocks, plants, etc., but also capable of detaching and floating in the water.
a persistent or many-sided problem that presents new obstacles as soon as one aspect is solved.
genitive Hy·drae [hahy-dree]. /ˈhaɪ dri/. (initial capital letter)Astronomy. the Sea Serpent, a large southern constellation extending through 90° of the sky, being the longest of all constellations.
Origin of hydra
1Words Nearby hydra
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use hydra in a sentence
As long as that remains the case, harassing groups can attack like hydras, unafraid to lose one, two, or three hundred heads if it means they damage their targets.
Twitch hate raids are more than just a Twitch problem, and they’re only getting worse | Nathan Grayson | August 25, 2021 | Washington PostIn 2020, physicists and biologists at the Technion in Israel analyzed the hydra, a fresh-water animal up to a centimeter long.
The Technion group microscopically examined a piece of hydra tissue as it regenerated, particularly its multicellular fibers that lie parallel to the long axis of a mature hydra.
Studies by a team in South Korea and Japan showed that the hydra periodically drops into a rest state that meets the essential criteria for sleep.
Sleep Evolved Before Brains. Hydras Are Living Proof. | Veronique Greenwood | May 18, 2021 | Quanta MagazineThe new revelations about sleep in hydras push the sleep discoveries to a new extreme.
Sleep Evolved Before Brains. Hydras Are Living Proof. | Veronique Greenwood | May 18, 2021 | Quanta Magazine
But this may be like the hydra, where something new can grow in its place.
Antifragile things, meanwhile, are strengthened by it—just as hydra grows stronger and more multiheaded with every decapitation.
A Manifesto for Disorder: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘Antifragile’ Reviewed | Robert Herritt | November 26, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTEditor's note: An earlier version of this article confused the monster hydra with Medusa.
A Manifesto for Disorder: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘Antifragile’ Reviewed | Robert Herritt | November 26, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe gang is a hydra, he said, and Suffolk County has seen fluctuations in gang activity.
Central American Gang MS-13 Cuts Swath of Murder and Mayhem Across Long Island | Matthew DeLuca | June 3, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTBut the animal itself is the same "hydra-headed monster," let whomsoever may fancy to pet it.
I aimed at the many-headed hydra whose visible representative was Frick.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist | Alexander BerkmanThe Homestead developments had given him temporary prominence, thrown this particular hydra-head into bold relief, so to speak.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist | Alexander BerkmanEvil complicates, by one knows not what hydra-headed monstrosity, the vast, cosmic whole.
Toilers of the Sea | Victor HugoNavigation everywhere contends with the same monster; the sea is one hydra.
Toilers of the Sea | Victor Hugo
British Dictionary definitions for hydra (1 of 3)
/ (ˈhaɪdrə) /
any solitary freshwater hydroid coelenterate of the genus Hydra, in which the body is a slender polyp with tentacles around the mouth
a persistent trouble or evil: the hydra of the Irish problem
Origin of hydra
1British Dictionary definitions for Hydra (2 of 3)
/ (ˈhaɪdrə) /
Greek myth a monster with nine heads, each of which, when struck off, was replaced by two new ones
British Dictionary definitions for Hydra (3 of 3)
/ (ˈhaɪdrə) /
a very long faint constellation lying mainly in the S hemisphere and extending from near Virgo to Cancer
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for hydra
[ hī′drə ]
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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