Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

basilisk

UK/ˈbæzɪlɪsk/US/ˈbæzɪlɪsk/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,793 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: basilisks

A basilisk is a legendary reptile said to kill with a look. The basilisk's gaze, slay the basilisk, fear the basilisk.

Pliny described it as a small serpent that killed with its breath and its stare, and medieval writers added the cockerel's head. A weasel was supposed to be the one animal that could kill it. There is also a real lizard called a basilisk that runs on water. Note that the Greek means little king.

Definitions of basilisk

  1. 1nounbasiliskA legendary reptile said to kill with a look.C1

    “In the old legend, the basilisk's gaze was so deadly that knights fought it using mirrors.”

basilisk is a mythical creature.

Remember it

The Greek means little king: the beast was said to wear a crown on its head and kill with a look. A basilisk is that king of snakes.

hooks ontoking

Where it comes from

Greek basiliskos means little king, from basileus, a king. The name may come from a crest on the creature's head.

  1. Ancient Greek

    βασιλίσκος

  2. Latin

    basiliscus

  3. Old French

    basilique

  4. Middle English

    basilicke

  5. English, today

    basilisk

Built from

  • βασιλεύς · Ancient Greek — king

From Middle English basilicke, borrowed from Old French basilique, from Latin basiliscus, from Ancient Greek βασιλίσκος literally “minor king or chieftain”, from βασιλεύς (“king”), possibly based on descriptions or rare encounters with different types of cobra which have crown-like patterns on their head; the 'deadly gaze' may have been from the spitting cobra's ability to spit venom into the eyes of predators or prey from a distance. The infohazard sense is a figurative reference to the deadly gaze of the mythical creature. Displaced native Old English fāgwyrm.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

basilisk in the wild

  • The physical appearance of the plumed basilisk is striking: it sports a bright green color along its body with black and white streaks along its neck and back.

    Plumed basilisk

  • The common basilisk (Basiliscus basiliscus) is a species of lizard in the family Corytophanidae.

    Common basilisk

  • The basilisk was a very heavy bronze cannon employed during the Late Middle Ages.

    Basilisk (cannon)

  • The barrel of a basilisk could weigh up to 1,800 kg and could have a calibre of up to 13 cm (5 inches).

    Basilisk (cannon)

  • LessWrong co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky considered it a potential information hazard, and banned discussion of the basilisk on the site for five years.

    Roko's basilisk

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.