seps
(sɛps)
[a. L. sēps, a. Gr. σήψ, f. σήπειν to make rotten.]
1. A very venomous serpent described by classical writers: see quots.
| 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 103 [Porcellayn] is..good agaynst the bytyng of a venemus beast, called seps. 1627 May Lucan ix. 829 The seps, whose bite Consumes the bones, dissolues the body quite. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. IV. 126 The Seps, whose wound is very venomous, and causes the part affected to corrupt in a very short time. 1820 Shelley Prometh. Unb. iii. i. 40 All my being, Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw Into a dew with poison, is dissolved. |
2. A lizard of the scincoid genus
Seps, having a serpent-like body; a serpent-lizard.
| [Cf. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. VII. 157 The Chalcidian Lizard of Aldrovandus, very improperly called the Seps, by modern historians. This animal seems to make the shade that separates the lizard from the serpent race.] |
| 1802 Shaw Gen. Zool. III. i. 252 Seps Lizard. Ibid., The Seps is rather a small species. 1835 Penny Cycl. IV. 528/2 They [sc. Blind-worms] are, in short, as Cuvier observes, so to speak, Seps-lizards, without feet. 1873 Mivart Elem. Anat. 57 The little lizard Seps. |