HARPY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Harpy

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noun

Harpy n. (pl. harpies)

(Gr. Myth.) A fabulous winged monster, ravenous and filthy, having the face of a woman and the body of a vulture, with long claws, and the face pale with hunger. Some writers mention two, others three. "Both table and provisions vanished quite. With sound of harpies' wings and talons heard."

One who is rapacious or ravenous; an extortioner. "The harpies about all pocket the pool."

(Zool.)

(a)

The European moor buzzard or marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus).

(b)

A large and powerful, double-crested, short-winged American eagle (Thrasaetus harpyia). It ranges from Texas to Brazil.

Harpy bat (Zool.)

(a)

An East Indian fruit bat of the genus Harpyia (esp. Harpyia cephalotes), having prominent, tubular nostrils.

(b)

A small, insectivorous Indian bat (Harpiocephalus harpia).

Harpy fly (Zool.), the house fly.

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Etymology of 'Harpy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Harpy" Quotes from Famous Books

... and you then may hang him. Shew me a lawyer that turnes sacred law (The equall rendrer of each man his owne, 50 The scourge of rapine and extortion, The sanctuary and impregnable defence Of retir'd learning and besieged vertue) Into a Harpy, that eates all but's owne, Into the damned sinnes it punisheth, 55 Into the synagogue of theeves and atheists; Blood into gold, and justice into lust:— Let me but hawlk at him, as at the rest, He shall confesse all, and you then may ...

— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... we wandered in That land of ruins, through whose sky of brass Hate's Harpy shrieked; and in whose iron grass The Hydra hissed of ...

— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein

... after his arrival he began to complain that he felt worse. It was then that he became the ranch's incubus, its harpy, its Old Man of the Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into a gehenna against his will; that he was dying of neglect and lack of comforts. With all his ...

— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... Harpy, and the heroes drew together, made fearful by these awful shapes. All drew back except Zetes and Calais, the sons of the North Wind. They laid their hands upon their swords. The wings on their shoulders spread out and the wings ...

— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... manuscript, I was caught by the name Charpillon, which every reader of the Memoirs will remember as the name of the harpy by whom Casanova suffered so much in London, in 1763-4. This manuscript begins by saying: 'I have been in London for six months and have been to see them (that is, the mother and daughter) in their own house,' where he finds nothing but 'swindlers, ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

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