Definition of "mantichora" []

• A mythical monster having the head of man (with horns) and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion. (noun)

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the phoenix. 114 Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and Persian cities."
• "Among the lower animals, he enumerates horned horses furnished with wings; the mantichora, with the face of a man, three rows of teeth, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail; the basilisk, whose very glance is fatal; and an insect which cannot live except in the midst of the flames."
• "The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were unquestioningly accepted by the mediæval naturalists), on the authority of CTESIAS (fl."