Word.ws English Dictionary

scolopendras

scolopendras is the plural of scolopendra.

Meaning of scolopendra

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

Questions about scolopendras

What is scolopendras the plural of?
Scolopendras is the plural of scolopendra.

Words near scolopendras in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scolopendras (page history and authors); 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.

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