Mantichoras

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A legendary beast depicted in medieval and ancient texts as having the face of a human, the body of a lion, and a tail armed with venomous spines or barbs
2. A fabulous monster from mythology combining human facial features with a lion's form and a scorpion-like tail capable of delivering poison
3. An imaginary creature of classical lore possessing a man's head atop a lion's frame, distinguished by a toxic tail used as a weapon

Etymology: Around 400 BCE, the Greek physician Ctesias, who served at the Persian court, described a creature in his account of India: a beast with a human face, a lion's body, a scorpion's tail, and a tail that could fire spines at enemies. Ctesias's text survives only in fragments and summaries, but the creature made its way into later Greek and Latin writing, including Pliny's natural history. The Greek name, "mantichoras," appears to be a borrowing from Old Persian "martiyakhvara," which combines "martiya-," meaning "man," and "khvar-," meaning "eat," so the name means "man-eater." The word reached English through Latin "manticora" and appeared in medieval English as "mantiger" or "mantichore," with the spelling shifting over time. Medieval bestiaries and travel accounts kept the creature alive, and it appears in heraldry and church carvings. Its alarming name survived long after its Persian origins were forgotten.