draconic
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Latin dracō (“dragon”) (stem dracōn-) + -ic.
Adjective
draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)
Derived terms
Etymology 2
From Latin Dracō (stem Dracōn-) + -ic,[1] after the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.
Adjective
draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)
- (rare, dated)[2][3] Very severe or strict; draconian.
- Synonym: draconical
- 1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, Stanza 64:
- […] they no land / Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws / Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.
- 1932, Edvard Westermarck, chapter VIII, in Ethical Relativity, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, page 248:
- The sexual instinct can hardly be changed by prescriptions; I doubt whether all laws against homosexual intercourse, even the most draconic, have ever been able to extinguish the peculiar desire of anybody born with homosexual tendencies.
- 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, The Gulag Archipelago, Harper & Row, published 1973, Vol. 2, Part III, pp. 9-10:
- In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was already demanding "the most decisive, draconic measures to tighten up discipline."
Usage notes
- Superseded by draconian.
Derived terms
References
- “Draconic, adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
Anagrams
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