Hamadryad

//hæməˈdɹaɪæd// noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wood-nymph who was physically a part of her tree; she would die if her tree were felled. Greek

    "The hamadryades have gone, like the golden fancies of which they were engendered—morning dreams of a young world scarce awake, but full of freshness and beauty. Yet often will the thought, or rather the fancy, come across me, that this wailing but most musical noise—heard in the dim evening, when every tree has a separate sound like a separate instrument, and every leaf a differing tone like the differing notes—is the piteous lament of some nymph pent within the gray and mossy trunk whence she may never more emerge in visible loveliness."

  2. 2
    large cobra of southeastern Asia and the East Indies; the largest venomous snake; sometimes placed in genus Naja wordnet
  3. 3
    A king cobra.
  4. 4
    the nymph or spirit of a particular tree wordnet
  5. 5
    A baboon of species Papio hamadryas, venerated by the ancient Egyptians.
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  1. 6
    Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genera Hamadryas and Tellervo.

Etymology

From Latin Hamadryas, from Ancient Greek Ἁμαδρυάς (Hamadruás), from ἅμα (háma, “together”) + δρῦς (drûs, “tree”).

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