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hamadryad

American  
[ham-uh-drahy-uhd, -ad] / ˌhæm əˈdraɪ əd, -æd /

noun

  • hamadryads,
    plural
  • hamadryades
    plural
  1. Classical Mythology. a dryad who is the spirit of a particular tree.

  2. king cobra.


hamadryad British  
/ ˌhæməˈdraɪəd, -æd /

noun

  1. classical myth one of a class of nymphs, each of which inhabits a tree and dies with it

  2. another name for king cobra

"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

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of hamadryad

< Latin, stem of Hamādryas wood nymph < Greek, equivalent to hama together with (cognate with same ) + dryás dryad


Vocabulary lists containing hamadryad

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

“A hamadryad is a wood-nymph, also a poisonous snake in India, and an Abyssinian baboon,” Hermes points out.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2010

One afternoon, while she was out at tea with some friends, the Malay gardener brought to the house the carcass of a hamadryad which he had killed in the garden.

From Where the Strange Trails Go Down Sulu, Borneo, Celebes, Bali, Java, Sumatra, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Cambodia, Annam, Cochin-China by E. Alexander (Edward Alexander) Powell

"A barb steeped in the venom of a hamadryad went in there!"

From The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer

The Indian hamadryad, or giant cobra, is exclusively a snake-eater.

From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt

Into the uneventful life of a hamadryad, here in this uncultured forest, could not possibly have entered much pleasurable excitement, and it seemed only right to inject a little.

From Jurgen A Comedy of Justice by James Branch Cabell

I have just sent people to Abyssinia to fetch me some big silver-gray lion-monkeys, sometimes called hamadryads.

From McClure's Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1 by Various

The old Japanese, like the old Greeks, had their flower-spirits and their hamadryads, concerning whom some charming stories are told.

From The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories by Lafcadio Hearn

The place seems to have been fashioned as a dwelling for dryads and hamadryads, for nixies and pixies, and all the fabled spirits of forest and stream.

From Rainbow's End by Rex Ellingwood Beach

In entire consistence with botany, geology, science, or what not, he endues his very seas and woods with passion, more than the old hamadryads or tritons.

From The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton by John Burroughs

They were also bitten in large numbers by the venomous hamadryads which used to abound there, and from the poison of which some died.

From Prisoners Their Own Warders A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits Settlements Established 1825 by John Frederick Adolphus McNair

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