Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

Amazon2

Syllabification: (Am·a·zon)
Pronunciation: /ˈaməˌzän/
Translate Amazon | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of Amazon

noun

  • 1a member of a legendary race of female warriors believed by the ancient Greeks to exist in Scythia (near the Black Sea in modern Russia) or elsewhere on the edge of the known world.
  • (also amazon) a tall and strong or athletic woman.
  • 2 (amazon) a parrot, typically green and with a broad rounded tail, found in Central and South America.
    • Genus Amazona, family Psittacidae: numerous species

Derivatives

Amazonian

adjective

Origin:

late Middle English: via Latin from Greek Amazōn, explained by the Greeks as 'without a breast' (as if from a- 'without' + mazos 'breast'), referring to the fable that the Amazons cut off the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of a bow, but probably a popular etymology of an unknown foreign word

Amazon in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of Amazon in the British & World English dictionary