Word.ws English Dictionary

scolopendra

scolopendra noun: a mythical sea-creature, reputed to be able to disgorge its bowels to dislodge any fishing-hook.

Noun

scolopendra (plural scolopendras)

  1. (obsolete) A mythical sea-creature, reputed to be able to disgorge its bowels to dislodge any fishing-hook.
    • Spring-headed Hydraes, and sea-shouldring Whales, / Great whirlpooles, which all fishes make to flee, / Bright Scolopendraes, arm'd with siluer scales, / Mighty Monoceroses, with immeasured tayles.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. A centipede of the genus Scolopendra.
    • This led the conversation to the insects of the Crimea and Ukraine, of which I had made a considerable collection, and the Emperor inquired of me if there were scorpions, scolopendras and tarantulas in the Crimea.1845 November, The Eclectic Magazine, volume 6, page 352

Forms of scolopendra

pluralscolopendras

Origin of scolopendra

From Latin scolopendra, from Ancient Greek σκολόπενδρα (skolópendra).

Questions about scolopendra

What does scolopendra mean?
Scolopendra means a mythical sea-creature, reputed to be able to disgorge its bowels to dislodge any fishing-hook.
What part of speech is scolopendra?
Scolopendra is a noun.
What is the plural of scolopendra?
The plural of scolopendra is scolopendras.

Words near scolopendra in the dictionary

  1. scolopaceous
  2. scolopacid
  3. scolopacids
  4. scolopacine
  5. scolopale
  6. scolopendra
  7. scolopendras
  8. scolopendrasin
  9. scolopendrellid
  10. scolopendrid
  11. scolopendrids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scolopendra (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “scolopendra.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scolopendra. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.