Search the Dictionary

Any species of very large snakes of the genus Python, and allied genera, of the family Pythonidæ. They are nearly allied to the boas. Called also rock snake.

The priestess who gave oracular answers at Delphi in Greece.

Prophetic; oracular; pretending to foretell events.

The art of predicting events after the manner of the priestess of Apollo at Delphi; equivocal prophesying.

A conjurer; a diviner.

Same as Mosasauria.

nd preys on birds and small mammals. The name is also applied to a similar large serpent (Python tigris) of Ceylon.

A genus of East Indian serpents, allied to the pythons; the bokadam.

ver fifty feet long. They are, essentially, fossil sea serpents with paddles. Called also Pythonomarpha, and Mosasauria.

Pythoness; witch. [Obs.]

f ancient Greece, celebrated near Delphi, in honor of Apollo, the conqueror of the dragon Python, at first once in eight years, afterward once in four.

es of Murex, Purpura, and allied genera. -- Rock snake (Zoöl.), any one of several large pythons; as, the royal rock snake (Python regia) of Africa, and the rock snake of India (P. molurus). The Australian rock snakes mostly belong to the allied genus Morelia. -- Rock snipe (Zoöl.), the purple sandpiper (Tringa marit…

A female fortune teller; a pythoness; a prophetess. "An old highland sibyl." Sir W. Scott.