draconic meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

draconic

adj

UK /dɹəˈkɒnɪk/ · US /dɹəˈkɑnɪk/

Etymology From Latin dracō (“dragon”, stem dracōn-) + English -ic.

Relating to or suggestive of dragons.

There are amongst the constellations four great draconic or serpent-like forms.1908, E. Walter Maunder, chapter V, in The Astronomy of the Bible, New York: Mitchell Kennerley, page 196:

adj

Etymology From Latin Dracō (stem Dracōn-) + -ic, after the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.

Dated, Rare Very severe or strict; draconian.

[…] they no land / Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws / Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LXIV, page 37:
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.1932, Edvard Westermarck, chapter VIII, in Ethical Relativity, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, page 248:

1 more example

In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was already demanding "the most decisive, draconic measures to tighten up discipline."1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, The Gulag Archipelago, Harper & Row, published 1973, Vol. 2, Part III, pp. 9-10: