harpy

noun

har·py ˈhär-pē

plural harpies

Synonyms of harpy next

capitalized : a foul malign creature in Greek mythology that is part woman and part bird

: a predatory person : leech

: a shrewish woman

Examples of harpy in a Sentence

in fairy tales stepmothers are often portrayed as harpies who make the lives of their stepchildren miserable having just started to make it really big in the music business, he found himself surrounded by a flock of harpies greedy for a piece of the action

Recent Examples on the Web

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For those guys, mothers are either harpies or sirens—villains or traps. —

Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 2 May 2024 This is her name for the seventh circle of hell from Dante’s Inferno, where the souls of those who’ve committed suicide become trees, and harpies peck at them for all eternity. —

Sara Holdren, Vulture, 21 Nov. 2023 Those kinds of sentiments have multiplied on social media, which has exploded with memes in recent days calling the four everything from terrorists to harpies to cancer. —

Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times, 27 July 2019 Others portrayed her as a harpy, a notoriously disagreeable mythical beast that was half bird-of-prey, half woman. —

The Economist, 9 Nov. 2019 See all Example Sentences for harpy