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Hydra
Definitions
- 1 A mythological serpent with many heads, slain by Hercules as one of his twelve labours. Greek
- 2 A spring constellation of the northern sky, said to resemble a serpent. It lies just south of the zodiac and contains the star Alphard.
"At night I lie dry-eyed on my little bed and turn my head to and fro to catch sight of one little star by one little star along the tail of Hydra, and think you are alive, you survive. Is this not what you wanted?"
- 3 One of Pluto's moons.
- 4 One of the Saronic Islands in the Aegean Sea.
- 5 A commune in Algiers Province, Algeria.
- 1 A dragon-like creature with many heads and the ability to regrow them when maimed.
- 2 small tubular solitary freshwater hydrozoan polyp wordnet
- 3 Any of several small freshwater polyps of the genus Hydra and related genera, having a naked cylindrical body and an oral opening surrounded by tentacles.
- 4 trouble that cannot be overcome by a single effort because of its many aspects or its persistent and pervasive quality wordnet
- 5 A complex, multifarious problem or situation that cannot be easily and rapidly solved. figuratively
"Because the statute is so vaguely worded, award decisions are habitually based on case law, the growing mountain of which is a hydra of rulings that point in so many directions that almost any decision can be defended or overturned on appeal, depending on how smart your lawyer is and which precedent he selects to argue your case."
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- 6 (Greek mythology) monster with nine heads; when struck off each head was replaced by two new ones wordnet
Etymology
After the Hydra, from Greek mythology, which grew two new heads every time one of its heads was cut off. The biology sense alludes to the budding method of asexual reproduction that the hydra practices, similar to growing new heads. The figurative sense refers to how the creature could not be killed by a swift, decisive solution (in contrast to a Gordian knot).
From Latin Hydra, the mythical serpent, originally from Ancient Greek ὕδρα (húdra), from Proto-Indo-European *údreh₂ (“aquatic”). Doublet of otter.
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Unscramble this word: hydra