Dictionary.com Word Of The Day
Mar. 03, 2017
hydra\HAHY-druh\noun
1. a persistent or many-sided problem that presents new obstacles as
soon as one aspect is solved.
2. (often initial capital letter) Classical Mythology. a water or marsh
serpent with nine heads, each of which, if cut off, grew back as two;
Hercules killed this serpent by cauterizing the necks as he cut off the
heads.
QuotesI was very bitter, I know, upon this night of which I am now
particularly telling, and the only face upon the hydra of Capitalism
and Monopoly that I could see at all clearly, smiled exactly as old
Rawdon had smiled when he refused to give me more than a paltry twenty
shillings a week.
-- H. G. Wells, In the Days of the Comet, 1906
Origin of hydraGeoffrey Chaucer (c1340-c1400) was the first English
writer to use ydre, the nine-headed serpent. Middle French ydre derives
from Latin hydra, itself a borrowing of Greek
hýdraâwater-serpent.â Hýdra is closely related to Greek hýdÅr
âwater,â and both words come from the Proto-Indo-European root
wed-, wod-, ud- âwet, water.â This same root is the source of
âwet, water,â and âwashâ in Germanic (English); of voda
âwaterâ and vodkaâvodkaâ in Slavic (Czech), of Hittite wÄtar
âwater.â Ud- is the variant of the root for both Greek hýdÅr and
Old Irish uisce âwaterâ (from unattested ud-skio-) and the
immediate source of English whisky/whiskey.More From
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