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Amazon|ˈæməzən|
Also 5 Amysone, 7 Amason. Pl. Amazons; also 4–7 Amazones. In 6–7 often accented aˈmāzon.
[a. L. Amazon, a. Gr. ἀµαζών, -όνα; explained by the Greeks from ἀ priv. + µαζ-ός a breast (in connexion with the fable that they destroyed the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of the bow), but prob. pop. etym. of an unknown foreign word.]
1. pl. A race of female warriors alleged by Herodotus, etc. to exist in Scythia.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xv. xii. (1495) 492 They were callyd Amazones, that is vnderstonde wythout breste. c1400Destr. Troy xxvii. 10804 Of Amysones auntrus atlet the qwene. 1653Cogan Diod. Sic. 100 The Amazones inhabited..near to the river of Thermodon. 1753Chambers Cycl. Suppl. s.v., The existence of the Amazons was called in question by Strabo. 1847Tennyson Princess ii. 110 Glanc'd at the legendary Amazon As emblematic of a nobler age.
2. Hence, A female warrior. lit. and fig.
1578T. N. tr. Conq. W. Ind. 14 There were Amazons women of warre, in certaine Ilandes. 1593Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, iv. i. 106 Belike she minds to play the Amazon. 1702Lond. Gaz. mmmdcccxl/2 About 200 Virgins in two Companies richly attired, many of them like Amazons, with Bows and Arrows. 1777Robertson Amer. (1783) III. 86 An opinion that..Amazons were to be found in this part of the New World. 1866B. Taylor Continents 394 When Europe rose a stately Amazon.
3. transf. A very strong, tall, or masculine woman.
1758Johnson Idler No. 6 ⁋2, I am far from wishing..the amazon..any diminution..of fame. 1767Fordyce Serm. Yng. Wom. I. iii. 105 To the men an Amazon never fails to be forbidding. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xlvi. (1856) 425 Extremes meet in the Esquimaux of Greenland and Amazons of Paris.
†4. The queen in chess. Obs.
1656F. Beale Biochimo's Chesse-play 2 The Queen or Amazon is placed in the fourth house from the corner of the field by the side of her King, and alwayes in her owne colour.
5. fig. in reference to the sexual habits of the Amazons.
1860Vac. Tour. 137 These hinds are amazons, not vestals.
6. = Amazon-ant.
1880Hunter in Cassell's Dict. s.v., These when hatched become a kind of pariah caste in the habitation of the Amazons.
7. Comb., as Amazon-dress, Amazon-like. Also Amazon-ant, -stone, q.v.
1580Sidney Arcad. (1622) 142 Her sword, which (Amazon-like) she euer ware about her. 1599Storer Wolsey (1826) 28 Her handmaids, in Amazon-like attire. c1630Drummond of Hawthornden Poems Wks. 1711, 50/1 A country maid Amazone like did ride. 1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) II. 252 Whom you admire..in her amazon-dress, with a free manly air becoming her.
Sense 7 in Dict. becomes 8. Add: 7. [f. the name of the River Amazon.] (Also with lower-case initial.) Any of numerous S. American parrots of the genus Amazona, often kept as cage-birds. Also Amazon parrot.
[1836P. L. Selby in W. Jardine Naturalist's Libr.: Ornith. VI. 103 The true Amazons' Parrot has so frequently been confounded and mixed up with other nearly allied species, that a description of it may not be unacceptable to our readers.] 1878C. E. Dyson Bird-Keeping 231 The common African Grey Parrot..and the Amazon Green Parrot are, perhaps, the most common in this country. 1934W. S. Berridge All about Birds xxii. 242 The Amazon parrots are favourite cage-birds, the most familiar being the blue-fronted species. 1961Guardian 4 Apr. 14/2, 10-year-old Polly Jolly, a green amazon, one of the birds stolen from a farm. 1985Perrins & Middleton Encycl. Birds 227 In southeastern Brazil, for example, forest cover has been so reduced by felling that species such as the Glaucous macaw and the Red-tailed amazon are now seriously threatened. |