medusa
medusa Lexical Profile
medusa Game Scores & Validity
• noun
(usually capitalized) In Greek mythology, a mortal Gorgon monster depicted with living venomous snakes in place of hair, whose gaze turned onlookers to stone, and who was ultimately slain by the hero Perseus.
"Ancient Greek shields were often emblazoned with the terrifying visage of Medusa to ward off evil spirits."
A free-swimming, umbrella-shaped or bell-shaped marine coelenterate (phylum Cnidaria) having trailing tentacles around the margin of the bell, representing the sexually reproductive phase of a jellyfish or hydrozoan.
"In the life cycle of many cnidarians, a sessile polyp buds asexually to release a free-swimming medusa."
• Rhymes for medusa
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed from Latin Medusa, from Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa), literally meaning "guardian" or "protectress," derived from the verb μέδω (médō, "to protect, rule over"). The biological sense was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1752 in allusion to the tentacled movement of the jellyfish resembling the mythological Gorgon's snake-like hair.