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Naiad   Listen
noun
Naiad  n.  
1.
(Myth.) A water nymph; one of the lower female divinities, fabled to preside over some body of fresh water, as a lake, river, brook, or fountain.
2.
(Zool.) Any species of a tribe (Naiades) of freshwater bivalves, including Unio, Anodonta, and numerous allied genera; a river mussel.
3.
(Zool) One of a group of butterflies. See Nymph.
4.
(Bot.) Any plant of the order Naiadaceae, such as eelgrass, pondweed, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Naiad" Quotes from Famous Books



... gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at Mother Ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. But when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief), would answer "No!" in a murmuring voice, which was just like the ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... adoration, thus began to adore; Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure: "Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee! For pity do not this sad heart belie— Even as thou vanishest so I shall die. 260 Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay! To thy far wishes will thy streams obey: Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain, Alone they can drink up the morning rain: Though a descended Pleiad, will not one Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine? So ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... restrained expression left in all eyes that have deeply mourned and bitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness as might come from health and elemental life,—such as a Dryad might have in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... pease. To these add CerEs, Saturn's cub, (Name of a goddess, and for grub The figure Metonymy through,) And ariEs, abiEs, pariEs, too. Sum with its compounds forming {e}s, } Are short, join pen{e}s, if you please, } Item Cyclop{e}s Naiad{e}s. } Greek nominatives and plural neuters, For lists of which consult your tutors. Is, we call short, as Par{i}s, trist{i}s, Save all such words as mensIs, istIs. Plurals oblique that end in is, Adding thereto for quibus quIs. The is in SamnIs long ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... is a Naiad now who slips, Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass, While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips, The moisture rains cool music on the grass. Her have I heard and followed, yet, alas! Have ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein

... Swept in the storm of chace; as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven, When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly. The Zephyrs fanning, as they passed, their wings, Lacked not, ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... N. sea, ocean, main, deep, brine, salt water, waves, billows, high seas, offing, great waters, watery waste, "vasty deep"; wave, tide, &c. (water in motion) 348. hydrography, hydrographer; Neptune, Poseidon, Thetis, Triton, Naiad, Nereid; sea nymph, Siren; trident, dolphin. Adj. oceanic; marine, maritime; pelagic, pelagian; seagoing; hydrographic; bathybic[obs3], cotidal[obs3]. Adv. at sea, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Cyclops but in the depths of the sea;" and tears stopped her utterance, which when the pitying maiden had wiped away with her delicate finger, and soothed the goddess, "Tell me, dearest," said she, "the cause of your grief." Galatea then said, "Acis was the son of Faunus and a Naiad. His father and mother loved him dearly, but their love was not equal to mine. For the beautiful youth attached himself to me alone, and he was just sixteen years old, the down just beginning to darken his cheeks. As much as I sought his society, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... the sea-nymph answered from her cave He called; the naiad left her mountain wave He dreamed of beauty; lo, amidst his dream, Narcissus, mirrored in the breathless stream; And night's chaste empress, in her bridal play, Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay; And ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... were erected, festivals were instituted, games were celebrated, and sacrifices were offered with more or less pomp and magnificence to them all. A regular gradation of immortal beings was acknowledged to preside throughout universal nature from the Naiad, who was adored as the tutelary guardian of a stream to Jupiter, the father of gods and men, who ruled with Supreme ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various

... seems to be Some sylvan resting, rosy from her bath: Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams, That every foam-white stream that twinkling flows, And every bird that flutters wings of tan, Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows Wild woodland music on ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... sleeper, awoke her from her slumbers. She arose—gracefully as a young fawn did she spring from the chaste embraces of her luxurious couch, and caroling forth a gay air—the gushing gladness of her happy heart—she proceeded to perform the duties of her toilet. Now, like a naiad at a fountain, does she lave that charming face and those ductile limbs in the limpid and rose-scented waters of a portable bath, sculptured in marble and supported by four little Cupids with gilded wings; then, like the fabled mermaid, does she arrange her shining ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... sails, the ship would probably have perished, for none of those who were on her had strength or desire enough to fight for life. With supreme effort some went to the side of the ship and eagerly gazed at the blue, transparent abyss. Perhaps they imagined they saw a naiad flashing a pink shoulder through the waves, or an insanely joyous and drunken centaur galloping by, splashing up the water with his hoofs. But the sea was deserted and mute, and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... the ancients place the Naiad and her fountain in the shady arbor of trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven into her fount and preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping shades she distributes the waters, which she has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... river in North Carolina which had been swollen by a recent freshet, and observed a country girl fording it in a merry mood, and carrying a piggin of butter on her head. As I arrived at the river's edge the rustic Naiad emerged from the watery element. 'My girl,' said I, 'how deep's the water and what's the price of butter?' 'Up to your waist and nine pence,' was the prompt and significant response! Let my learned friend beat that if he can, in brevity ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... scream—Clotilde, in stretching too far forward, had missed her footing, and fallen upon the bank; she was within an inch of rolling into the river. Hector rushed to her, raised her gently up, and begging her to lean her head upon his shoulder, assisted her up the bank. "She's like a naiad surprised by a shepherd"—he thought—and it is not improbable that at that moment he pressed his lips pretty close to the pale cheek that rested almost in his breast. When he lifted up his head, he perceived, half hidden among the willows, on the other side of the river—Daphne! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet in the leafy coolness ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... of Undine is similar to that of Melusina, save that the naiad's desire to obtain a human soul is a conception foreign to the spirit of the myth, and marks the degradation which Christianity had inflicted upon the denizens of fairy-land. In one of Dasent's tales the water-maiden is replaced by a kind of ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... held a happy spouse. "A lake expands with steep and shelving shores "Encompass'd; myrtles crown the rising bank. "Here Dryope, of fate unconscious came, "And what must more commiseration move, "Came to weave chaplets for the Naiad nymphs; "Her arms sustain'd her boy, a pleasing load, "His first year scarce complete, as with warm milk "She nourish'd him. The watery Lotus there, "For promis'd fruit in Tyrian splendor bright, "Grew flowering near. The flowers ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... recipiency, Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, Repair the waste of age and sickness: no, It skills not! life's inadequate to joy, As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 250 They praise a fountain in my garden here Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise. What if I told her, it is just a thread From that great river which the hills shut up, 255 And mock her with my leave to take the same? The artificer has given her one small tube Past power to widen or ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... ever attempted to exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy Batrachospermum in its clear depths, we plunged in to secure it for Mother, whether Julie or any other Naiad liked it or no! But "the splendour in the grass and glory in the flower" that we found in "St. Nicholas" was very deep and real, thanks to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood she must have felt, and imparted to us, a great ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 10 To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, That the light of its tremulous bells is seen, Through their pavilions of tender green. The Sensitive Plant. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... through many a woodland maze 105 Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, 110 The Naiad of the mirror! Not to thee, O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale: Gloomy and dark art thou—the crowded firs Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: 115 Save when the shy king-fishers ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... banks he stood, And clapped his sides and leaped into the flood: His lovely limbs the silver waves divide, His limbs appear more lovely through the tide; As lilies shut within a crystal case, Receive a glossy lustre from the glass. 'He's mine, he's all my own,' the Naiad cries, And flings off all, and after him she flies. 90 And now she fastens on him as he swims, And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs. The more the boy resisted, and was coy, The more she clipped and kissed the struggling boy. So when ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... away; And she shall have them, since my gifts you spurn. Come hither, beauteous boy; for you the Nymphs Bring baskets, see, with lilies brimmed; for you, Plucking pale violets and poppy-heads, Now the fair Naiad, of narcissus flower And fragrant fennel, doth one posy twine- With cassia then, and other scented herbs, Blends them, and sets the tender hyacinth off With yellow marigold. I too will pick Quinces all silvered-o'er with hoary down, Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the Hamadryads of Nonacris,[106] there was one Naiad very famous; the Nymphs called her Syrinx. And not once {alone} had she escaped the Satyrs as they pursued, and whatever Gods either the shady grove or the fruitful fields have {in them}. In her pursuits and her virginity itself ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... bewitching little girl at the edge of some fields that lay along the avenue de Tivoli. Hearing the horse, the child sprang up from the bottom of one of the many brooks which are to be seen from the heights of Issoudun, threading the meadows like ribbons of silver on a green robe. Naiad-like, she rose suddenly on the doctor's vision, showing the loveliest virgin head that painters ever dreamed of. Old Rouget, who knew the whole country-side, did not know this miracle of beauty. The child, who was half naked, wore a ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... little Mr. Bouncer he was partially punished for his practical joke. Indeed, he afterwards declared that a severe cold which troubled him for the next fortnight was attributable to his having held in his arms the damp form of the dishevelled naiad. On her recovery - which was effected by Mr. Bouncer giving way under his burden, and lowering it to the ground - she utterly refused to be again carried in the wagon; and, as walking was perhaps better for her ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... desk, she opened it with a silver key, and took out two or three papers crumpled and rather stained with green, which she submitted to her friend. Laura took them and read them. They were love-verses sure enough—something about Undine—about a Naiad—about a river. She looked at them for a long time; but in truth the lines were not very distinct before ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... bright sea; Ceres descends at eve From Jove's high conclave; if her much-loved child Should meet her not in yonder golden field, Where to the evening wind the ripe grain waves Its yellow head, how will her heart misgive. [13] Let us adjure the Naiad of yon brook[,] She may perchance have seen our Proserpine, And tell us to what distant field she's strayed:— Wait thou, dear Ino, here, while I repair To the tree-shaded source of ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley

... 'twas so correctly finisht to the life, you'd have sworn it an image of the soul too. One side gave the story of the eagle bearing Jupiter to heaven, the other the fair Hylas repelling the addresses of the lew'd naiad: in another part was Apollo, angry at himself for killing his boy Hyacinth; and, to shew his love, crown'd his harp with the flower that ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... stumps of four swords; one more than Francois I. at Marignan. Homer says: "Diomedes cuts the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; Euryalus, son of Mecistaeus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; Polypaetes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. Meganthios dies under the blows of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Wednesday appear to belong to that class of spiritual beings, sometimes of a demoniacal disposition, with which the imagination of the old Slavonians peopled the elements. Of several of these—such as the Domovoy or House-Spirit, the Rusalka or Naiad, and the Vodyany or Water-Sprite—I have written at some length elsewhere,[263] and therefore I will not at present quote any of the stories in which they figure. But, as a specimen of the class to which such tales as these belong, here is a skazka about ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus- flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... paused, as if again She thought to catch the distant strain. With head upraised, and look intent, And eye and ear attentive bent, And locks flung back, and lips apart, Like monument of Grecian art, In listening mood, she seemed to stand, The guardian Naiad of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Naiad" :   water nymph, aquatic plant, hydrophyte, genus Najas, naiad family, genus Naias, Najas



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