Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Mermaid

Mer′maid (mẽr′mād), n. [AS. mere lake, sea. See Mere lake, and maid.] A fabled marine creature, typically represented as having the upper part like that of a woman, and the lower like a fish; a sea nymph, sea woman, or woman fish.

☞ Chaucer uses this word as equivalent to the siren of the ancients.

Mermaid fish (Zoöl.) the angel fish (Squatina). — Mermaid's glove (Zoöl.), a British branched sponge somewhat resembling a glove. — Mermaid's head (Zoöl.), a European spatangoid sea urchin (Echinocardium cordatum) having some resemblance to a skull. — Mermaid weed (Bot.), an aquatic herb with dentate or pectinate leaves (Proserpinaca palustris and P. pectinacea).

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.