draconic

English

Etymology 1

From the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.

Adjective

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

  1. Draconian.
    • 1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, Stanza 64,
      [] they no land / Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws / Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.
    • 1932, Edvard Westermarck, Ethical Relativity, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Chapter VIII, p. 248,
      The sexual instinct can hardly be changed by prescriptions; I doubt whether all laws against homosexual intercourse, even the most draconic, have ever been able to extinguish the peculiar desire of anybody born with homosexual tendencies.
    • 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1973), translated by Thomas P. Whitney, Harper & Row, Vol. 2, Part III, pp. 9-10,
      In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was already demanding "the most decisive, draconic measures to tighten up discipline."

Etymology 2

From Latin draco (dragon) + -ic.

Adjective

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

  1. Relating to or suggestive of dragons.
    • 1908, E. Walter Maunder, The Astronomy of the Bible, New York: Mitchell Kennerley, Chapter V, p. 196,
      There are amongst the constellations four great draconic or serpent-like forms.

See also

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.