Dragon - legendary monster usually
conceived as a huge, bat-winged, fire-breathing, scaly lizard or snake
with a barbed tail. The belief in these creatures apparently arose
without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the
gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like
reptiles. In Greece the word drakon, from which the English
word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent, and the
dragon of mythology, whatever
shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.
"Dragon",
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