dragon
pronunciation
How to pronounce dragon in British English:
UK [ˈdræɡən]
How to pronounce dragon in American English:
US [ˈdræɡən]
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- Noun:
- a creature of Teutonic mythology; usually represented as breathing fire and having a reptilian body and sometimes wings
- a fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman
- any of several small tropical Asian lizards capable of gliding by spreading winglike membranes on each side of the body
Word Origin
- dragon
- dragon: [13] English acquired dragon via Old French dragon and Latin dracō from Greek drákōn. Originally the word signified simply ‘snake’, but over the centuries this ‘snake’ increased in size, and many terrifying mythical attributes (such as wings and the breathing of fire) came to be added to it, several of them latterly from Chinese sources. The Greek form is usually connected with words for ‘look at, glance, flash, gleam’, such as Greek drakein and Sanskrit darç, as if its underlying meaning were ‘creature that looks at you (with a deadly glance)’. Dragon is second time around for English as far as this word is concerned: it originally came by it in the Old English period, via Germanic, as drake. Dragoons [17] (an adaptation of French dragon) were originally mounted infantry, so called because they carried muskets nicknamed by the French dragon ‘fire-breather’.=> dragoon, drake, rankle
- dragon (n.)
- early 13c., from Old French dragon, from Latin draconem (nominative draco) "huge serpent, dragon," from Greek drakon (genitive drakontos) "serpent, giant seafish," apparently from drak-, strong aorist stem of derkesthai "to see clearly," from PIE *derk- "to see." Perhaps the literal sense is "the one with the (deadly) glance." The young are dragonets (14c.). Obsolete drake "dragon" is an older borrowing of the same word. Used in the Bible to translate Hebrew tannin "a great sea-monster," and tan, a desert mammal now believed to be the jackal.
Example
- 1. Insulting a dragon in china is no laughing matter .
- 2. Missiles stream down from the dragon and the other gunships
- 3. If the falcon and the dragon can pass another set of technical tests , the firm could start flying astronauts by 2017 .
- 4. I want a dragon baby !
- 5. On top of that rocket is a capsule called dragon .