8. (Her.) A fabulous winged creature, sometimes borne as a charge in a coat of arms.
Dragon is often used adjectively, or in combination, in the sense of relating to, resembling, or characteristic of, a dragon.
Dragon arum (Bot.), the name of several species of Arisæma, a genus of plants having a spathe and spadix. See Dragon root(below). -- Dragon fish (Zoöl.), the dragonet. -- Dragon fly (Zoöl.), any insect of the family Libellulidæ. They have finely formed, large and strongly reticulated wings, a large head with enormous eyes, and a long body; -- called also mosquito hawks. Their larvæ are aquatic and insectivorous. -- Dragon root (Bot.), an American aroid plant (Arisæma Dracontium); green dragon. -- Dragon's blood, a resinous substance obtained from the fruit of several species of Calamus, esp. from C. Rotang and C. Draco, growing in the East Indies. A substance known as dragon's blood is obtained by exudation from Dracæna Draco; also from Pterocarpus Draco, a tree of the West Indies and South America. The color is red, or a dark brownish red, and it is used chiefly for coloring varnishes, marbles, etc. Called also Cinnabar Græcorum. -- Dragon's head. (a) (Bot.) A plant of several species of the genus Dracocephalum. They are perennial herbs closely allied to the common catnip. (b) (Astron.) The ascending node of a planet, indicated, chiefly in almanacs, by the symbol &?;. The deviation from the ecliptic made by a planet in passing from one node to the other seems, according to the fancy of some, to make a figure like that of a dragon, whose belly is where there is the greatest latitude; the intersections representing the head and tail; -- from which resemblance the denomination arises. Encyc. Brit. - - Dragon shell (Zoöl.), a species of limpet. -- Dragon's skin, fossil stems whose leaf scars somewhat resemble the scales of reptiles; -- a name used by miners and quarrymen. Stormonth. -- Dragon's tail (Astron.), the descending node of a planet, indicated by the symbol &?;. See Dragon's head (above). -- Dragon's wort (Bot.), a plant of the genus Artemisia (A. dracunculus). -- Dragon tree (Bot.), a West African liliaceous tree (Dracæna Draco), yielding one of the resins called dragon's blood. See Dracæna. -- Dragon water, a medicinal remedy very popular in the earlier half of the 17th century. "Dragon water may do good upon him." Randolph (1640). -- Flying dragon, a large meteoric fireball; a bolide.
Drag"on*et (?), n. 1. A little dragon. Spenser.
2. (Zoöl.) A small British marine fish (Callionymuslyra); -- called also yellow sculpin, fox, and gowdie.
Drag"on*ish, a. resembling a dragon. Shak.
Drag"on*like` (-lk`), a. Like a dragon. Shak.
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Drag`on*nade" (drg`n*nd"), n. [F., fr. dragon dragoon, because Louis XIV., in persecuting the Protestants of his kingdom, quartered dragoons upon them.] The severe persecution of French Protestants under Louis XIV., by an armed force, usually of dragoons; hence, a rapid and devastating incursion; dragoonade.
He learnt it as he watched the dragonnades, the tortures, the massacres of the Netherlands.