NYMPH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Nymph

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noun

nymph n.

(Class. Myth.) A goddess of the mountains, forests, meadows, or waters. "Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?"

Hence: A lovely young girl; a maiden; a damsel. "Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered."

(Zool.) The pupa of an insect; a chrysalis.

(Zool.) Any one of a subfamily (Najades) of butterflies including the purples, the fritillaries, the peacock butterfly, etc.; called also naiad.

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Etymology of 'Nymph'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nymph" Quotes from Famous Books

... drawing of this rare insect, Hymenopus bicornis (in the nymph or active pupa state), was kindly sent me by Mr. Wood-Mason, Curator of the Indian Museum at Calcutta. A species, very similar to it, inhabits Java, where it is said to resemble a pink orchid. Other Mantidae, of the genus Gongylus, have the anterior part of the thorax dilated and coloured either ...

— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... much lighter fancy, and full of a peculiar grace, though with a depth of melancholy that endears it. No doubt it was founded on the universal idea in folk-lore of the nixies or water-spirits, one of whom, in Norwegian legend, was seen weeping bitterly because of the want of a soul. Sometimes the nymph is a wicked siren like the Lorelei; but in many of these tales she weds an earthly lover, and deserts him after a time, sometimes on finding her diving cap, or her seal-skin garment, which restores her to her ocean kindred, sometimes on his intruding on her while she is under ...

— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... wood of firs, and pines, and ilexes about thirty or forty years old is pointed out as the grove in which Numa used to meet the nymph. In all the views on one side Soracte is a striking object, ...

— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... me," he was saying, "of a nymph among dowagers and frightened to death. There's really nothing to be frightened of, unless you prefer fear to other ...

— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... of cab No. 2002. You should have seen Fanny Bolton's eyes watching after the dove-coloured young lady. Immediately Huxter perceived the direction which they took, they ceased looking after the dove-coloured nymph, and they turned and looked into Sam Huxter's orbs with the most artless ...

— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

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