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draconic

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology 1

From Latin dracō (“dragon”) (stem dracōn-) +‎ -ic.

Adjective

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

  1. Relating to or suggestive of dragons.
    Synonym: dragonish
    • 1908, E. Walter Maunder, chapter V, in The Astronomy of the Bible‎, New York: Mitchell Kennerley, page 196:
      There are amongst the constellations four great draconic or serpent-like forms.
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)

  1. (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
Derived terms

References

  1. [1]
    “Draconic, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  2. [2]
    draconic laws, draconian laws at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
  3. [3]
    The Grammarphobia Blog: A serpentine etymology

Anagrams

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