Association of British Scrabble Players

Culture > Myth > Beasts


Now updated for CSW19. New words, if any, and new inflections of existing words, are shown in red.


bandersnatch an imaginary wild animal of fierce disposition; a person of uncouth or unconventional habits, attitudes, etc. especially one considered a menace, nuisance, or the like. [Coined by Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass"].
bargest barghest barguest a dog-like goblin portending death.
barometz a fabulous Russian creature, half plant and half sheep; the inverted woolly caudex etc. of the tree-fern Cibotium barometz, which was used to create the illusion of such a creature.
basilisk a fabled serpent that could kill by its look.
bibe a banshee whose crying is an omen of death.
bigfoot a large hairy humanlike creature. Pl. BIGFEET or BIGFOOTS.
boojum a mythical animal invented by Lewis Carroll.
bunyip a fabulous monster of Australian swamps and lagoons.
centaur a mythical creature half-man, half-horse. [Gk. kentauros].
centaurian of or like a CENTAUR.
cerberean cerberian of or resembling, Cerberus, a watchdog, especially in the fact of having three heads.
chimaera chimera a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a serpent. Also used in genetics to describe any mixture of two or more (real) creatures.
chimaeric chimeric chimerical of the nature of a CHIMAERA; imaginary, fanciful, visionary.
cockatrice a fabulous serpent whose breath and look were said to be fatal. Cf. BASILISK.
cyclops a one-eyed monster > CYCLOPES. Can also be a genus of freshwater copepod. N.B. no CYCLOP*.
cyclopean cyclopean cyclopic relating to a cyclops; also, relating to a prehistoric Greek style of masonry with immense stones of irregular form.
draconian draconic of or of the nature of a dragon.
dragon a mythical monster usually represented as breathing fire and having a scaly reptilian body, wings, claws, and a long tail.
dragoness a female dragon.
dragonise dragonize to turn into a dragon.
dragonish resembling a dragon.
dragonlike like a dragon.
firedrake firedragon a fiery dragon.
fum fung a fabulous bird.
gorgon (with capital) one of three female winged monsters (Stheno, Euryale and Medusa), with horrible and petrifying faces and hissing serpents for hair; (without capital) anybody, esp a woman, who is very ugly or formidable.
griffin griffon gryfon gryphon an imaginary animal with a lion's body and an eagle's head. [GRIFFON can also be a breed of dog or a kind of vulture].
grype a griffin.
harpy a rapacious monster covered in filth, having a woman's face and body and a bird's wings and claws, supposed to be a minister of divine vengeance.
>harpylike like a HARPY.
hellhound a devilish dog.
hippodame a fabulous sea monster.
hippogriff hippogryph a fabulous winged animal, half horse and half griffin.
hircocervus a fabulous creature, half goat, half stag.
huma a mythical bird similar to the phoenix, supposed to bring luck to any person over whom it hovers on its restless flights. [Pers. & Urdu huma phoenix.]
hydra (with capital) a water monster with many heads, which when cut off were succeeded by others; (without capital) a freshwater hydrozoon of the genus Hydra, remarkable for power of multiplication on being cut or divided.
impundulu (Zulu) a mythical bird with magical powers, often identified with the secretary bird. Pl. IMPUNDULUS.
jabberwock jabberwocky a mythical creature created by Lewis Carroll, now used to mean nonsense, gibberish.
jackalope a mythical animal that is reported chiefly from the western US and is reputed to be the size of a small deer and to have the body of a jackrabbit and the horns of an antelope.
jumart the impossible mythical offspring of a cow and donkey.
kelpie kelpy a water-horse, a fabulous beast.
kraken a legendary sea monster.
kylin a fabulous animal figured in the decoration of Chinese pottery.
lamia a mythical monster with snake's body and woman's head and breasts. Pl. LAMIAE or LAMIAS.
leviathan an (imaginary or real) aquatic animal of enormous size; a sea-monster.
lindworm a wingless dragon.
lycanthrope lycanthropist a WEREWOLF.
lycanthropy the condition of being a LYCANTHROPE.
manticora manticore a mythical monster with head of man, body of lion, tail of dragon or scorpion. [For a fine imagining of a MANTICORE, as well as of a HIPPOGRIFF and a COCKATRICE, see E.R. Eddison's 'The Worm Ouroboros'].
medusa (with capital) one of the three Gorgons, whose head, with snakes for hair, turned beholders into stone, but was cut off by Perseus, and placed in Athena's aegis; (without capital) a jellyfish > MEDUSAE or MEDUSAS.
monoceros a one-horned creature; a unicorn; a sea monster with one horn, possibly based on the narwhal or rorqual > MONOCEROSES.
onocentaur a kind of CENTAUR, half-man and half-ass.
ouroboros uroboros a snake eating its own tail, symbolizing totality or completion. Pl. OUROBOROSES.
pegasus (with capital) the winged horse that sprang from Medusa's blood, by later writers associated with the Muses; (without capital) a member of a genus (Pegasus) of small fishes superficially like seahorses.
percolin a bird unknown to ornithology and apparently dreamed up by the staff of Chambers!
phenix phoenix a bird fabled to exist single, to be consumed by fire by its own act, and to rise again from its ashes.
roc rok ruc rukh a fabulous bird, very large, and presumed capable
rosmarine (Spenser) a mythical walrus-like sea animal that feeds on dew.
sasquatch a large hairy manlike creature said to inhabit certain parts of Canada.
satyre a Spenserian sea-monster.
shapeshifter (in folklore) a creature that has the ability to change its physical form at will.
shapeshifting (in folklore) the ability to change physical form at will.
simorg simurg simurgh a monstrous bird of Persian fable.
snark an imaginary animal created by Lewis Carroll.
sphinx any of several Egyptian stone figures of a creature with a human or animal head and (occas.) breast and a lion's body > SPHINXES or SPHINGES. [Gk. from sphingein, to draw tight].
taniwha a mythical monster, that lives in very deep water.
tarand a mythical creature said to have the power of changing colour to match its surroundings. [Gk. tarand(r)os a reindeer or (probably) elk].
thunderbird in N. American Indian lore, a huge bird personifying thunder and lightning.
tragelaph a fabulous animal, part goat, part stag. [Gr. tragelaphos, from tragos, a goat + elaphos, a deer].
turnskin a WEREWOLF.
unicorn an imaginary creature usually depicted as a white horse with one long spiralled horn growing from its forehead.
uroboros see OUROBOROS.
uroboric of or like a UROBOROS.
wasserman a man-shaped sea monster. Pl. WASSERMEN.
wendigo windigo a mythical monster among some N. American Indian tribes, that eats human flesh > WENDIGOS, WINDIGOS or WENDIGOES, WINDIGOES. [Ojibwa wintika].
werewolf werwolf a mythical being able to change at times from a person to a wolf.
werewolfery the state of being a WEREWOLF.
werewolfish werwolfish like a WEREWOLF.
werewolfism the state of being a WEREWOLF.
werwolf see WEREWOLF.
whangam (Goldsmith) an imaginary animal.
windigo see WENDIGO.
wiver wivern wyvern a dragon. In heraldry a dragon is distinguished from a wyvern by the fact that a dragon has 4 legs, while a wyvern has 2.
yale a fabulous heraldic beast.
yeti the Abominable Snowman.
yowie a tall ape-like monster of SE Australia. [Aborig. yuwi, dream-spirit].
ziffius a sea-monster, perhaps a sword-fish.