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echidna

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
14
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/əˈkɪdnə/
See all 3 pronunciations
/əˈkɪdnə/ · /ɪˈkɪd.nə/ · /əˈkɪd.nə/

Definition of echidna

2 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. Any of the species of small spined monotremes in the family Tachyglossidae, the four extant species of which are found in Australia and southern New Guinea.
See all 2 definitions

noun

  1. Any of the species of small spined monotremes in the family Tachyglossidae, the four extant species of which are found in Australia and southern New Guinea.

name

  1. (Greek)A female monster who, along with Typhon, mothered the vast majority of the famous monsters and creatures of Greek mythology.
    “Horrible, hideous, and of hellish race, / Borne of the brooding of Echidna base, / Or other like infernall furies kinde […].”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Coined in scientific literature around 1811. Probably from Ancient Greek ἔχιδνα (ékhidna, “snake, viper”) via Latin echidna. Compare ἐχῖνος (ekhînos, “hedgehog, etc.”). However, this sense is problematic (unless it is…

See full etymology

Coined in scientific literature around 1811. Probably from Ancient Greek ἔχιδνα (ékhidna, “snake, viper”) via Latin echidna. Compare ἐχῖνος (ekhînos, “hedgehog, etc.”). However, this sense is problematic (unless it is a reference to the ant-eating tongue). The name perhaps belongs to Latin echinus (“sea urchin, hedgehog”) from the aforementioned Ancient Greek term's alternate sense of "sea-urchin" (also "sharp points"), which Watkins explains as "snake-eater", from ἔχις (ékhis, “snake”), though it may actually be from Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰis (“hedgehog, hedgehog-like animals”). The 1810 Encyclopaedia Britannica deduces thus the animal's alternative name as "porcupine ant-eater". Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, the name refers to Echidna as the name of a serpent-nymph in Greek mythology, "a beautiful woman in the upper part of her body; but instead of legs and feet, she had from the waist downward, the form of a serpent", in which case the animal was named for its mixed features (early naturalists doubted whether it was a mammal or amphibian). Ultimately, the etymology may be from a synthesis of all the roots above. (From OED.)

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