hydra
(ˈhaɪdrə)
Forms: α. 4–6 ydre, 5 ydres, 6–7 hydre, hyder. β. 4 idra, 6–7 hidra, 6– hydra.
[a. L. hydra, a. Gr. ὕδρα, water-serpent; spec. as in sense 1. Some of the earlier forms are a. OF. idres, ydre (mod.F. hydre).]
I. 1. Gr. Myth. The fabulous many-headed snake of the marshes of Lerna, whose heads grew again as fast as they were cut off: said to have been at length killed by Hercules.
| α c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iv. pr. vi. 104 (Camb. MS.) Whan o dowte is determyned and kut awey, ther wexen oother dowtes with-owte nowmbyr ryht as the heuedes wexen of ydre the serpent þat Ercules slowh. 1460 J. Capgrave Chron. (Rolls) 33 The vii. [labour of Hercules], killyng of the grete serpent cleped Ydres. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xi. xix, How redoubted Hercules..Fought with an ydre. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. xii. 23 Spring-headed Hydres; and sea-shouldring Whales. |
| β 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. ix. (Bodl. MS.), Ydra is a serpente wiþ many hedes..and it is seide that ȝif one hed is smyte of þree hedes growiþ aȝen. 1596 Spenser F.Q. vi. xii. 32 Like the hell-borne Hydra, which they faine That great Alcides whilome overthrew. 1604 Shakes. Oth. ii. iii. 308 Had I as many mouthes as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 628 Worse Than Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire. 1780 Harris Philol. Enq. Wks. (1841) 463 When Alexander the Great died, many tyrants, like many hydras, immediately sprung up. 1879 Gladstone in Lib. Mag. I. No. 6. 663 The Eastern question has as many heads as the hydra. |
2. transf. and fig. A thing, person, or body of persons compared to the Lernæan hydra in its baneful or destructive character, its multifarious aspects, or the difficulty of its extirpation.
| 1494 Fabyan Chron. vi. cciv. 215 The serpent Idre of enuy and false conspyracy, whiche euer burned in the harte of Edricus. 1546 Bale Eng. Votaries ii. (1550) 118 b, That odyouse hydre and hissinge serpent of Rome. 1586 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. i. (1589) 378 They minister life and nourishment..to this monstrous Hydra of covetousnes and lucre. 1592 Daniel Sonn. Delia xv. (R.), And yet the hydra of my cares renews Still new born sorrows of her fresh disdain. 1726 Amherst Terræ Fil. ix. 41 The hydra is not to be destroy'd, unless you strike off all the heads at once;..if you were to turn out one jacobite head of a college, another as bad is ready to step in his room. 1809 H. More Cœlebs I. 387 Selfishness..is the hydra we are perpetually combating. 1850 Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) II. xii. 59 The hydra of revolt lay stunned and prostrate. |
3. A rhetorical term for any terrific serpent or reptile; a ‘dragon’.
| 1546 Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1560) 98 b, As greate honoure.. it was to Saint George that noble Captaine, to slea the great hydre or Dragon at Silena. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage vi. i. 467 The Deserts of Lybia have in them many Hydras. 1851–78 C. L. Smith tr. Tasso iv. v, Hydras hiss, and Pythons whistling wail. |
4. A water-snake; esp. one of the venomous sea-snakes of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
| 1608 Topsell Serpents (1658) 759 All Water-serpents, as well of the fresh, salt, and sweet waters may be called Hyders, or Snakes. 1814 Cary Dante, Inf. ix. 41 Around them greenest hydras twisting roll'd Their volumes. 1855 Emerson Misc., Sov. Ethics Wks. (Bohn) III. 374 Her interiors are terrific, full of hydras and crocodiles. |
5. Astron. An ancient southern constellation, represented as a water-snake or sea-serpent. Its chief star is Alphard or Cor Hydræ, of the second magnitude.
| 1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 27 A Table of many notable fixed Sterres with their longitude..Brightest in Hydra. 1674 Moxon Tutor Astron. (ed. 3) 221 Hydra, the Hydre. 1838 Penny Cycl. XII. 379/2 Hydra, the Water-snake, one of the old constellations. 1870 Proctor Other Worlds xii. 293 The very existence of such a stream as Eridanus or Hydra..implies..such a process of segregation. |
II. 6. Zool. a. (pl. usually hydræ.) A genus of Hydrozoa, consisting of fresh-water polyps of very simple structure, the body having the form of a cylindrical tube, with a mouth surrounded by a ring of tentacles with stinging thread-cells.
The name was given to it by Linnæus (1756), in allusion to the fact that cutting it in pieces only multiplies its numbers.
| 1798 F. Kanmacher G. Adams' Ess. Microscope (ed. 2) title-p., An account of the..singular properties of the Hydræ and Verticellæ. 1835–6 Todd Cycl. Anat. I. 609/1 The Hydra..is the largest..of the Fresh-water Polypi. 1847 Carpenter Zool. §1050 If cut transversely into several segments, each will in time become a perfect animal, so that thirty or forty Hydræ may thus be produced by the section of one. 1861 J. R. Greene Man. Anim. Kingd., Cœlent. 20 The Hydra possesses a gelatinous, sub-cylindrical body..having one end expanded into an adherent disc, or foot, a mouth being situated at its opposite extremity. |
b. The sexual bud or medusa of any hydroid hydrozoan; so called from its resemblance to an individual of the genus Hydra.
| 1865 E. & A. Agassiz Seaside Stud. Nat. Hist. 23 The whole mass of the coral is porous, and the cavities occupied by the Hydrae are sunk perpendicularly to the surface within the rock. |
c. hydra tuba: a larval or non-sexual form of hydroid in certain Hydrozoa, of a trumpet-like form.
| 1847 J. G. Dalyell Rare Animals Scotl. I. 76 Hydra tuba, the Trumpet Polypus. 1858 Huxley Oceanic Hydrozoa 7 The like structure is observable in the ‘Hydra tuba’, the larval form of the Lucernarian Medusæ. 1870 H. A. Nicholson Man. Zool. I. 101 The Hydra-tuba, as the young organism at this stage of its career has been termed by Sir J. G. Dalyell. 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 780 The non-sexual Hydroid form of the Acraspeda, the Scyphistoma or Hydra tuba. |
III. 7. attrib. and Comb. a. attrib. (a) in senses 1 and 2: Of or belonging to a hydra, hydra-like; having as many heads, or as difficult to extirpate, as the Lernæan hydra.
| 1586 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. i. (1589) 430 Protectors of this Hydra Ignorance. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iv. ii. 38 Whereon this Hydra-Sonne of Warre is borne. 1683 T. Hoy Agathocles 16 Poor Men! our Fruitful Hydra-Ills encrease, For One Head lost, an Hundred in the Place. 1708 Ozell tr. Boileau's Lutrin vi. 113 Tyranny Erects her Hydra-head. 1742 Young Nt. Th. iv. 837 Dark Dæmons I discharge, and Hydra-stings. 1797 M. Robinson Walsingham I. 7 They are the hydra assailants which return with every hour. 1813 Sir R. Wilson Priv. Diary II. 444 If there is a fight..you will then hear what a hydra force sprouted out for the occasion. |
(b) in sense 6: Belonging to or resembling the genus Hydra of polyps.
| 1878 E. Clark Visit S. Amer. 45 This singular organism the physalia belongs to the hydra family, and is in every respect a jelly fish. 1880 E. R. Lankester in Nature XXI. 413 The sperms from which a new generation of hydra-forms will spring. |
b. similative or parasynthetic, as hydra-headed, hydra-kinded, hydra-necked adjs.; also hydra-like adj.
| 1589 Warner Alb. Eng. v. xxviii. 126 (Stanf.) Those Hydra-kinded warres. 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, i. i. 35 Nor neuer Hidra-headed Wilfulnesse So soone did loose his Seat; and all at once; As in this King. 1666 Dryden Ann. Mirab. ccxlix, Hydra-like, the fire Lifts up his hundred heads to aim his way. 1798 Malthus Popul. (1878) 50 This hydra-headed monster rose again after a few years. 1842 Ainsworth's Mag. II. 43 The Puff Literary is hydra-headed. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 49 Fancying that they can cut off at a blow the Hydra-like rogueries of mankind. 1899 Daily News 8 Feb. 7/5 The hydra⁓headed leadership of the Irish party. 1963 Daily Tel. 20 Nov. 14/2 The hydra-headed challenge of London's mounting traffic congestion. |