The Evolution of Dragons in Western Literature: A History | Tor.com

The Evolution of Dragons in Western Literature: A History | Tor.com:

The origin of the dragon is such a mystery, even the exact etymology of its name is disputed. But you can mostly trace the meaning of dragon back to “serpent” (as with drakon in Ancient Greek and draco in Latin, for instance). If you dig deeper, its root derk- (or drk-) is the equivalent of “to see” in Ancient Greek—suggesting that drk-on also indicates “seeing one,” or “I see.”

Ironically, this power of sight was a one-way street: no one in the Western world could agree on what they saw of the dragon. As such, the earliest descriptions of them were fabulously inconsistent. Generally, dragons were titanic and powerful—but that was about where the common ground ended. Some accounts said that dragons were poisonous; others argued that they breathed fire; still others insisted that they were winged. In fact, if there was only one constant in ancient Western myths, it was this glaring certainty: dragons were stone-cold evil.