basilisk
- n (classical mythology) a serpent (or lizard or dragon) able to kill with its breath or glance
- n ancient brass cannon
- n small crested arboreal lizard able to run on its hind legs; of tropical America
- Even moviegoers who liked L'Avventura will probably find The Night black and cold; it has a basilisk intensity that turns the heart to stone.
- Among a host of other duties, he has to edit every piece of copy that goes into PTI each week (he has, he says, a basilisk's eye complicated by journalist's cataract).
- With a "basilisk artistry" on the lecture platform and "a certain ruthlessness," Huxley loved to bandy texts and split hairs with the theologians.