SALAMANDER • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Salamander

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/sˌæləmˈændər/ Listen

noun

Salamander n.

(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of Urodela, belonging to Salamandra, Amblystoma, Plethodon, and various allied genera, especially those that are more or less terrestrial in their habits. Note: The salamanders have, like lizards, an elongated body, four feet, and a long tail, but are destitute of scales. They are true Amphibia, related to the frogs. Formerly, it was a superstition that the salamander could live in fire without harm, and even extinguish it by the natural coldness of its body. "I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years." "Whereas it is commonly said that a salamander extinguisheth fire, we have found by experience that on hot coals, it dieth immediately."

(Zool.) The pouched gopher (Geomys tuza) of the Southern United States.

A culinary utensil of metal with a plate or disk which is heated, and held over pastry, etc., to brown it.

A large poker. (Prov. Eng.)

(Metal.) Solidified material in a furnace hearth.

Giant salamander. (Zool.) See under Giant.

Salamander's hair or Salamander's wool (Min.), a species of asbestos or mineral flax. (Obs.)

See images of 'Salamander'

Etymology of 'Salamander'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Salamander" Quotes from Famous Books

... triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintain'd that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years; God ...

— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... ill-washed rag, and, woe is me! got from me what I had kept these three-and-twenty years and more, defending it against Moors and Christians, natives and strangers; and I always as hard as an oak, and keeping myself as pure as a salamander in the fire, or wool among the brambles, for this good fellow to come now with clean hands to ...

— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... filled the next two sides of the letter, and ran, without a trace of punctuation, into instructions about a Salamander stove for heating my work-room in the flat; these were followed by things I was to tell the cook, and by requests for several articles she had forgotten and would like sent after her, two of them blouses, with descriptions ...

— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... my hoecake would have to be a salamander—that fire-proof creature that is supposed to live in flames. For the cooling down of that molten batter didn't go so far but that it still would make too hot a mouthful ...

— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... On lifting up the leaf I discovered that a hairy spider was ambushed there and had the bee by the throat. The vampire was evidently afraid of the bee's sting, and was holding it by the throat till quite sure of its death. Virgil speaks of the painted lizard, perhaps a species of salamander, as an enemy of the honey-bee. We have no lizard that destroys the bee; but our tree- toad, ambushed among the apple and cherry blossoms, snaps them up wholesale. Quick as lightning that subtle but clammy tongue darts forth, and the unsuspecting ...

— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

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