rinatrix
nounEtymology From Late Latin rinatrix (in Bartholomaeus Anglicus), apparently a misreading of Lucan 9.720 et natrix (“and the water snake”).
1
Obsolete A type of water snake formerly thought to poison water.
- Rinatrix is a Serpent which with enuenoming poysoneth ye water, so that into what cleare Fountaine or Riuer he swimmeth, he infecteth it.1567, John Maplet, A Greene Forest:
- Mountebank with thy pedantical action, / Rinatrix, bugle-ox, rhinoceros.1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, I.1: