rinatrix
English
Etymology
From Late Latin rinatrix (in Bartholomaeus Anglicus), apparently a misreading of Lucan 9.720 et natrix (“and the water snake”).
Noun
rinatrix
- (obsolete) A type of water snake formerly thought to poison water. [14th–19th c.]
- 1567, John Maplet, A Greene Forest:
- Rinatrix is a Serpent which with enuenoming poysoneth ye water, so that into what cleare Fountaine or Riuer he swimmeth, he infecteth it.
- 1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, I.1:
- Mountebank with thy pedantical action, / Rinatrix, bugle-ox, rhinoceros.
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