nymph - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

If you're excited to have spotted a nymph, you must take an interest in attractive young women or in bugs. It's really none of my business either way.

The word nymph comes straight out of Greek mythology, where it described nature spirits in the form of young women usually found in the woods. When you didn't return to the campsite for so long, I thought you'd either been eaten by a bear or run off with a nymph. What do you mean you ran off with a bear? Or were you just out looking for the insect larva kind of nymphs?

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: nymph

1	n	(classical mythology) a minor nature goddess usually depicted as a beautiful maiden
2	n	a larva of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis (as the dragonfly or mayfly)

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: nymph

1

n (classical mythology) a minor nature goddess usually depicted as a beautiful maiden

“the ancient Greeks believed that nymphs inhabited forests and bodies of water”

Examples:: Lorelei
a Siren of German legend who lured boatmen in the Rhine to destruction

Types:: show 13 types...; hide 13 types...; Echo
(Greek mythology) a nymph who was spurned by Narcissus and pined away until only her voice remained; Atlantides, Hesperides
(Greek mythology) group of 3 to 7 nymphs who guarded the golden apples that Gaea gave as a wedding gift to Hera; Hyades
(Greek mythology) 7 daughters of Atlas and half-sisters of the Pleiades; they nurtured the infant Dionysus and Zeus placed them among the stars as a reward; Oread
(Greek mythology) one of the mountain nymphs; Pleiades
(Greek mythology) 7 daughters of Atlas and half-sisters of the Hyades; placed among the stars to save them from the pursuit of Orion; Asterope, Sterope
(Greek mythology) one of the 7 Pleiades; water nymph
(Greek mythology) any nymph of the water; Daphne
(Greek mythology) a nymph who was transformed into a laurel tree to escape the amorous Apollo; dryad, wood nymph
a deity or nymph of the woods; Salmacis
nymph who merged with Hermaphroditus to form one body; sea nymph
(Greek mythology) a water nymph who was the daughter of Oceanus or Nereus; naiad
(Greek mythology) a nymph of lakes and springs and rivers and fountains; hamadryad
the nymph or spirit of a particular tree

Type of:: Graeco-Roman deity, Greco-Roman deity
a deity of classical mythology

n a voluptuously beautiful young woman

Synonyms:: houri

Type of:: adult female, woman
an adult female person (as opposed to a man)

2

n a larva of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis (as the dragonfly or mayfly)

Type of:: larva
the immature free-living form of most invertebrates and amphibians and fish which at hatching from the egg is fundamentally unlike its parent and must metamorphose