Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Exceedingly harsh; very severe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as Draconic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to Draco, a famous lawgiver of Athens, 621 b. c. Used especially in the phrase Draconian punishment.
  • adjective a code of laws made by Draco. Their measures were so severe that they were said to be written in letters of blood; hence, any laws of excessive rigor.
  • adjective punishment so severe as to seem excessive for the crime being punished.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete, except in fiction Of or resembling a dragon
  • adjective Very severe, oppressive or strict.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to Draco or his harsh code of laws

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Draco.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin draco ("dragon")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word draconian.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • See also draconic

    December 17, 2006

  • I always want this word to have some kind of fantasy component, probably confusing it with dragonian.

    July 21, 2007

  • That softens it! ;-)

    July 21, 2007

  • “…draconian anti-terrorism legislation.�? The “draconian�? seems redundant these days.

    May 19, 2008

  • A good example of why examples need to be clustered. All of the 'Dragons' examples should be under one larger heading, and all other examples under another 'English usage' heading. especially since the dicdefs don't list "evil creature spawned from Weis and Hickman's imagination" as an option.

    January 28, 2010