wyvern: difference between revisions

• wivern, wiver, wyver

Alteration of Middle English wyver (“viper”), borrowed from Old Northern French wivre, from Latin vīpera (“viper; snake, serpent”). Doublet of weever and viper.

• enPR: wī'və(r)n, wĭ'və(r)n, wē'və(r)n, IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪvə(ɹ)n/, /ˈwɪvə(ɹ)n/, /ˈwiːvə(ɹ)n/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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  • Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -aɪvə(ɹ)n, -ɪvə(ɹ)n, -iːvə(ɹ)n

wyvern (plural wyverns)

1. (heraldry, mythology, fantasy) A draconian creature possessing wings, only two legs and usually a barbed tail.
   • 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh:  […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

     The jargon of heraldry, its griffins, its moldwarps, its wyverns, and its dragons.

   • 1940-54 The Collected Poetry of Malcolm Lowry, "WE SIT UNHACKLED DRUNK AND MAD TO EDIT", UBC Press,1992, p.222:

     Notions of freedom are tied up in drink / Our ideal life contains a tavern / Where man may sit and talk of or just think / All without fear of the nighted wyvern, / Or yet another tavern where it appears.

• wyvern on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• dragon
• drake
• lindworm
• wyrm