DRAGON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Dragon mean? 

• DRAGON (noun)
  The noun DRAGON has 4 senses:

1. a creature of Teutonic mythology; usually represented as breathing fire and having a reptilian body and sometimes wings

2. a fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman

3. a faint constellation twisting around the north celestial pole and lying between Ursa Major and Cepheus

4. any of several small tropical Asian lizards capable of gliding by spreading winglike membranes on each side of the body

  Familiarity information: DRAGON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DRAGON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A creature of Teutonic mythology; usually represented as breathing fire and having a reptilian body and sometimes wings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

dragon; firedrake

Hypernyms ("dragon" is a kind of...):

mythical creature; mythical monster (a monster renowned in folklore and myth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dragon"):

wivern; wyvern (a fire-breathing dragon used in medieval heraldry; had the head of a dragon and the tail of a snake and a body with wings and two legs)

Instance hyponyms:

Fafnir ((Norse mythology) the Norse dragon that guarded a treasure and was slain by Sigurd)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A fiercely vigilant and unpleasant woman

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

dragon; tartar

Hypernyms ("dragon" is a kind of...):

disagreeable woman; unpleasant woman (a woman who is an unpleasant person)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A faint constellation twisting around the north celestial pole and lying between Ursa Major and Cepheus

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

Draco; Dragon

Instance hypernyms:

constellation (a configuration of stars as seen from the earth)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Any of several small tropical Asian lizards capable of gliding by spreading winglike membranes on each side of the body

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

dragon; flying dragon; flying lizard

Hypernyms ("dragon" is a kind of...):

agamid; agamid lizard (a lizard of the family Agamidae)

Holonyms ("dragon" is a member of...):

Draco; genus Draco (a reptile genus known as flying dragons or flying lizards)

 Context examples 

I have been to the sun, the moon, and the night-wind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome the dragon.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Dragon's Breath Cave, the largest non-subglacial underground lake on Earth, is buried there.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You came in as the knight does in the jongleur's romances, between dragon and damsel, with small time for the asking of questions.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Gold and scarlet in arabesque designs gleamed upon the walls, with gilt dragons and monsters writhing along cornices and out of corners.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked “The Spy-glass.”

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

We have been privileged to overhear a prehistoric tragedy, the sort of drama which occurred among the reeds upon the border of some Jurassic lagoon, when the greater dragon pinned the lesser among the slime, said Challenger, with more solemnity than I had ever heard in his voice.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I knew that the opening of safes was a particular hobby with him, and I understood the joy which it gave him to be confronted with this green and gold monster, the dragon which held in its maw the reputations of many fair ladies.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He has promised to be very good today, and he can be perfectly elegant if he likes, returned Amy, and gliding away to warn Hercules to beware of the dragon, which warning caused him to haunt the old lady with a devotion that nearly distracted her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

There they found the princess sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was lying asleep, with his head upon her lap.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)