Dryad
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A female tree spirit. Greek
"There it had stood for years, close beside a mighty oak, under which sat often the kindly old priest, who told stories to the listening children. The young chestnut tree listened with them: the Dryad inside it, who was still a child, could remember the time when the tree was so small that it only reached a little higher than the ferns and long blades of grass."
- 2 a deity or nymph of the woods wordnet
- 3 mountain avens, dryas
Example
More examples"Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning."
Etymology
From Old French driade (“wood nymph”), from Latin Dryas, Dryadis, from Ancient Greek Δρυάς (Druás, “dryad”), from δρῦς (drûs, “oak”), from Proto-Indo-European *derew(o)- (“tree, wood”); cf. Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree”).
Related phrases
More for "dryad"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.