Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Same as
manticore . - noun [capitalized] A genus of tiger-beetles of the family Cicindelidæ, founded by Fabricius in 1781, typical of the Mantichorinæ. All are African; M. tuberculata is an example.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A mythical monster having the head of man (with horns) and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a mythical monster having the head of man (with horns) and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion
Etymologies
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Examples
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The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the phoenix. 114 Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and Persian cities.
Bygone Beliefs 1969
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Among the lower animals, he enumerates horned horses furnished with wings; the mantichora, with the face of a man, three rows of teeth, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail; the basilisk, whose very glance is fatal; and an insect which cannot live except in the midst of the flames.
Handbook of Universal Literature From the Best and Latest Authorities Anne C. Lynch Botta 1853
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The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were unquestioningly accepted by the mediæval naturalists), on the authority of CTESIAS (fl.
Bygone Beliefs 1969
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