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Glite Dictionary
🐉 A many-headed beast 🪐 A Pluto moon 🌌 A star group 🪱 A tiny water animal
Hydra

Hydra

8.4
A small freshwater animal with tentacles that can regrow lost parts
  • noun
  • /ˈhaɪdrə/
  • Specialized
translation icon : Hydra
  • In the biology lab, students studied how the hydra can regenerate lost body parts.

Examples

  • He killed the "arrow-proof" lion in Nemea and the many-headed hydra in Lerna—both towns.

    Academic text (1998)

  • The scientist observed a small hydra in the freshwater tank that could regrow its tentacles after being damaged.

  • A hydra, actually.

    Swordfish (2001)

  • My muse is a seven-headed hydra with a flying horse body.

    Blog text (32)

  • During the experiment, we watched a hydra reproduce asexually by budding off new individuals.

Idioms

to battling a hydra
  • Literature
9.9

To deal with a problem that keeps causing many new problems

Compounds

Lernaean Hydra
  • Literature
9.9

A big snake with many heads from Greek myth whose cut heads often grow back as two

Surface Forms

Hydra singular
Hydras plural

Etymology

Hydra for the small freshwater animal was named after the Greek monster because these tiny creatures can regrow parts, like the monster's heads. It also shares the root hydro- meaning 'water', so the name fits this water creature.