wyvern

English
Flag of Wessex, featuring a wyvern rampant.

Alternative forms

Etymology

Alteration of Middle English wyvere (“viper”), borrowed from Old Northern French wivre, from Latin vīpera (“viper; snake, serpent”). See also weever.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: wī'və(r)n, wĭ'və(r)n, IPA(key): /ˈwaɪvə(ɹ)n/, /ˈwɪvə(ɹ)n/
  • Rhymes: -aɪvə(ɹ)n, -ɪvə(ɹ)n

Noun

wyvern (plural wyverns)

  1. (heraldry, mythology, fantasy) A draconian creature possessing wings, only two legs and usually a barbed tail.
    • Sir Walter Scott
      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.

Translations

See also
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