draconic

English

Etymology 1

From Latin draco (dragon) + -ic.

Adjective

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

  1. Relating to or suggestive of dragons.
    • 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.

See also

Etymology 2

From the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.

Adjective

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

  1. (rare, dated, has been replaced by "draconian")[1][2] Very severe or strict; draconian.
    • 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."

References

Anagrams

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from German drakonisch.

Adjective

draconic m or n (feminine singular draconică, masculine plural draconici, feminine and neuter plural draconice)

  1. draconian

Declension

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