Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Harpy |
HarpyNoun1. A malicious fierce-tempered woman. 2. (Greek mythology) vicious winged monster; often depicted as a bird with the head of a woman. 3. Any of various fruit bats of the genus Nyctimene distinguished by nostrils drawn out into diverging tubes. 4. Large black-and-white crested eagle of tropical America. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "harpy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1598. (references) |
Etymology: Harpy \Har"py\, noun; plural Harpies. [French expression harpie, from Latin expression harpyia, Greek, from the root of to snatch, to seize. Gf. Rapacious.]. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In Greek mythology, Harpies ("robbers") were first beautiful winged women, daughters of Electra and Thaumas. Later, they were winged hags with sharp bird-talons. They abducted people and tortured them on their way to Tartarus. They were vicious, cruel and violent. They live on Strophades. They are usually seen as the personifications of the destructive nature of wind. The three harpies were: Aello ("storm swift"), Celaeno ("the dark"), also known as Podarge ("fleet-foot"), and Ocypete ("the swift wing").Phineas was a King of Thrace, son of Agenor who had the gift of prophesy. Zeus, angry that Phineas revealed too much of the plans of the gods, punished him by setting him on an island with a buffet of food. He could eat none of it, however, because the harpies stole the food out of his hands right before he could eat. This continued until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts. They sent the winged heroes, the Boreads after the harpies. They succeeded in driving the monsters away but did not kill them, as a request from the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, who promised that Phineas would not be bothered by the harpies again. As thanks, Phineas told the Argonauts how to pass the Sympleglades.
Ovid XIII, 710; Virgil III, 211, 245.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Harpies."
Synonyms: HarpySynonyms: harpy bat (n), harpy eagle (n), hellcat (n), tube-nosed bat (n), tube-nosed fruit bat (n), vixen (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Demon | Noun: demon, daemon, demonry, demonology; evil genius, fiend, familiar, daeva, devil; bad spirit, unclean spirit; cacodemon, incubus, Eblis, shaitan, succubus, succuba; Frankenstein's monster; Shedim, Mephistopheles, Asmodeus, Moloch, Belial, Ahriman; fury, harpy; Friar Rush. |
Evil doer | Harpy, siren; Furies, Eumenides. |
Parsimony | Miser, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm, scrimp, lickpenny, hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian; pinch fist, pinch penny. |
Severity | Tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian, martinet, stickler, bashaw, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture; accipitres, birds of prey, raptorials, raptors. |
Thief | Spoiler, depredator, pillager, marauder; harpy, shark, land shark, falcon, mosstrooper, bushranger, Bedouin, brigand, freebooter, bandit, thug, dacoit; pirate, corsair, viking, Paul Jones, buccaneer, buccanier; piqueerer, pickeerer; rover, ranger, privateer, filibuster; rapparee, wrecker, picaroon; smuggler, poacher; abductor, badger, bunko man, cattle thief, chor, contrabandist, crook, hawk, holdup man, hold-up, jackleg, kidnaper, rustler, cattle rustler, sandbagger, sea king, skin, sneak thief, spieler, strong-arm man. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Harpy |
| English words defined with "harpy": Harpies. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "harpy": Xanthos. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | A harpy, who beats him, and hits him, he he becomes her slave, and he sews her clothes, and worships-- (The English Patient; writing credit: Anthony Minghella) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Harpy (1971) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Harpy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Harpy" is used about 100 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 100 | 32,668 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "harpy": harpy bat ♦ harpy eagle ♦ Harpy fly ♦ old harpy. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "harpy": harpy-bat, harpy-like. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
harpy eagle | 116 |
harpy | 56 |
harpy eagle picture | 12 |
harpy lady | 8 |
eagle harpy photo | 6 |
harpy knife | 5 |
eagle harpy information | 5 |
harpy hulk | 4 |
betty harpy ross | 3 |
cyber harpy | 3 |
spyderco harpy | 3 |
harpy picture | 3 |
animal eagle forest harpy rain | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "harpy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | harpi (bitch, hooker, whore), lubi. (various references) | |
Arabic | خفاش (bat, vampire), العالة (dependent, hanger-on, sponge), الطفيلى (hanger-on), الخطاف مخلوق خرافى, إمرأة عجوزة (gammer, old woman). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | харпия, грабител (depredator, extortionist, grabber, plunderer, reaver, reiver, robber, spoiler, spoliator, usurper). (various references) | |
Czech | lupiè (burglar, freebooter, hold-up-man, plunderer, raider, robber, thug). (various references) | |
Danish | harpy (South American harpy eagle). (various references) | |
Dutch | harpij, harpý, Zuidamerikaanse arend. (various references) | |
Esperanto | harpio. (various references) | |
French | harpie. (various references) | |
German | harpyie (South American harpy eagle). (various references) | |
Greek | στρίγκλα (maenad, scold, termagant), άρπυια. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מרשעת (harridan, shrew, termagant, virago). (various references) | |
Hungarian | hárpia (brimstone, catamaran, shrew, termagant). (various references) | |
Italian | arpia (jezebel). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ハーバード大学 (50% beam splitter, half, half coat, half made, half mirror, half size camera, half swing, half tone, half volley, halfback, halftime, halfway house, harem, harem pants, harmonica, harmonize, harmony, harp, harpoon, harpsichord, Harvard University, herb, herb tea, hierarchy, high, high octane gasoline, high quality, high-class, high-end, high-grade, highjack, high-key, high-key tone, high-octane, high-sulfur, highway, highway patrol, hijack, hike, hiker, hiking, hurler derby, hyena, jai-alai, mouth organ, someone of mixed Japanese-foreign race, stylish fellow, three-quarter, top coat, westernized). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ハー"ー . (various references) | |
Manx | urley raipagh (harpy eagle). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | arpyhay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | harpia (South American harpy eagle), pessoa avarenta. (various references) | |
Romanian | harpie (fury). (various references) | |
Russian | грабитель (depredator, extortioner, freebooter, harrier, looter, mugger, outlaw, plunderer, ransacker, reaver, reiver, robber, sandbagger, snatcher, spoliator, yegg), гарпия. (various references) | |
Scottish | arpag (a harpy). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | harpija, rospija (vixen), grabljivac (grabber, vulture). (various references) | |
Spanish | arpía (battle axe, battle-ax, shrew, termagant, virago). (various references) | |
Swedish | harpya (harpy eagle), rovgirig person. (various references) | |
Turkish | yarı kadın yarı kuş canavar, vampir kadın, acımasız kadın. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гарпія. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Harpia harpyja, Harpyia. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "harpy": sharpy. (additional references) | |
| |
"Harpy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: hagry, halry, Hampi, Hapi, hapy, haray, harpay, Harpe, harpi, harpie, harpier, harpit, harpo, harpt, harpys, Harrhy, harty, Harvy, Hercy, herpy, herpys, hipy, hirly, hiry, hiryu, hrp, varpy. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| Words rhyming with "harpy" (pronounced 'Har"py'): Chappy, Choppy, Cuppy, Floppy, Happy, Loppy, Mishappy, Overhappy, Pappy, Paspy, scrappy, Shoppy, slippy, sloppy, snappy, soppy, Spattling-poppy, unhappy. (additional references) |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-h-p-r-y" | |
-1 letter: harp, pray. | |
-2 letters: hap, hay, hyp, pah, par, pay, pry, pya, rah, rap, ray, rya, yah, yap, yar. | |
-3 letters: ah, ar, ay, ha, pa, ya. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-h-p-r-y" | |
+1 letter: phylar, sharpy. | |
+2 letters: atrophy, charpoy, eparchy, pharynx, phratry, preachy, sharply, therapy, whipray. | |
+3 letters: charpoys, euphrasy, myograph, pharmacy, phyllary, pyorrhea, rhapsody, shipyard, syrphian, whiprays. | |
+4 letters: apocrypha, archetype, biography, champerty, coryphaei, dysphoria, epigraphy, geography, heptarchy, horseplay, hyperacid, hyperarid, hyperbola, hyperemia, hypergamy, hyperopia, hyperpnea, kymograph, myographs, orography, pachyderm, paranymph, pentarchy, pharynges, pharynxes, phrasally, polygraph, polyhedra, porphyria, preachify, preachily, pyorrheas, shipyards, syrphians, typograph, xylograph. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Translations: Ancient 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
