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Harpies (2 syl.)

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Vultures with the head and breasts of a woman, very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating everything which they came near. Homer mentions but one harpy. Heʹsiod gives two, and later writers three. The names indicate that these monsters were personifications of whirlwinds and storms. Their names were Ocypʹeta (rapid), Celeʹno (blackness), and Aëllʹo (storm). (Greek harpuiai, verb harpāzo, to seize; Latin harpyia. See Virgil: Æneid, iii. 219, etc.).

He is a regular harpy. One who wants to appropriate everything; one who sponges on another without mercy.

“I will … . do you any embassage … rather than hold three words conference with this harpy.”—Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing, ii. 1.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Harness Prize (University of Cambridge)
Haro
Harold the Dauntless
Harold’s Stones
Haroot and Maroot
Haroun al Raschid
Harp
Harpagon (A)
Harpalice
Harpe
Harpies
Harpocrates
Harridan
Harrier
Harrington
Harris
Harry (To) = to harass
Harry
Harry Soph
Hart
Hart Royal

See Also:

Harpies