See here be dragons in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for here be dragons meaning in English (5.9kB)
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"2": "la",
"3": "hic sunt dracones",
"4": "HC SVNT DRACONES",
"5": "here are dragons"
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"expansion": "Latin HC SVNT DRACONES (“here are dragons”)",
"name": "uder"
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"etymology_text": "Evidence of the use of this term as a notation on actual historical maps is lacking. The only known appearance of an equivalent phrase in any language on a historical map is of Latin HC SVNT DRACONES (“here are dragons”), placed on the east coast of Asia, on the Hunt-Lenox Globe, which dates from c. 1510. The phrase is simply a variation on HIC SVNT LEONES (\"here are lions\"), the classical phrase used by medieval cartographers to denote unknown territories on maps.",
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"ref": "1994, Steven Henry Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering, page 11",
"text": "It's like in those old maps of the world, where the mapmakers wrote, \"Here be dragons\" on the unexplored parts of the globe.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2004, Nornie Campbell, No Dragons Here, page 253",
"text": "The awakening world scrawled ‘Here Be Dragons’ across the unknown territory.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011, Susie Vrobel, Fractal Time: Why a Watched Kettle Never Boils, page 255",
"text": "When the old seafarers encountered uncharted territory, they would find those blank areas on the map marked with the phrase “Here be Dragons” and the image of a sea serpent or a similarly ferocious creature.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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"A fanciful notation, commonly attributed to historical maps, held to indicate either the belief that unknown dangers exist in a certain location on the map, or that actual dragons can be found there."
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"_dis1": "66 34",
"word": "non plus ultra"
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"_dis1": "66 34",
"word": "here be monsters"
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"word": "there be dragons"
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"translations": [
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"_dis1": "61 39",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "map notation indicating unknown dangers",
"word": "此處有龍"
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"roman": "cǐchùyǒulóng",
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"word": "此处有龙"
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"ref": "1962, Geoffrey Fletcher, The London Nobody Knows, page 16",
"text": "Here be dragons in the shape of London landladies, owners of small hotels ('B. & B.') in the streets off the lower end of Euston Road. . .",
"type": "quotation"
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"ref": "1987, Ritchie Calder, reported in New Scientist, Vol. 114, No. 1559, May 7, 1987, p. 61",
"text": ". . . let me go into what was the unknown, ‘Here-be-Dragons’, hinterland of science, to find out what made scientists tick. . ."
},
{
"ref": "1993, Incorporated Association of Organists, Organists' Review, Volume 79, Issues 309-312, p. 219",
"text": "Speaking of money... here be dragons... Do you charge?"
},
{
"ref": "1997, William R. Everdell, The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought, page 191",
"text": "Analytical philosophers mark \"Here be dragons\" on the part of the intellectual map that belongs to phenomenology.",
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{
"ref": "1997, Charles Jones, The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, page 336",
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"type": "quotation"
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"word": "here be dragons"
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"text": "It's like in those old maps of the world, where the mapmakers wrote, \"Here be dragons\" on the unexplored parts of the globe.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2004, Nornie Campbell, No Dragons Here, page 253",
"text": "The awakening world scrawled ‘Here Be Dragons’ across the unknown territory.",
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},
{
"ref": "2011, Susie Vrobel, Fractal Time: Why a Watched Kettle Never Boils, page 255",
"text": "When the old seafarers encountered uncharted territory, they would find those blank areas on the map marked with the phrase “Here be Dragons” and the image of a sea serpent or a similarly ferocious creature.",
"type": "quotation"
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"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "1987, Ritchie Calder, reported in New Scientist, Vol. 114, No. 1559, May 7, 1987, p. 61",
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},
{
"ref": "1993, Incorporated Association of Organists, Organists' Review, Volume 79, Issues 309-312, p. 219",
"text": "Speaking of money... here be dragons... Do you charge?"
},
{
"ref": "1997, William R. Everdell, The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought, page 191",
"text": "Analytical philosophers mark \"Here be dragons\" on the part of the intellectual map that belongs to phenomenology.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1997, Charles Jones, The Edinburgh history of the Scots language, page 336",
"text": "In undertaking such a task, I realise that I am venturing into uncharted waters, or at least waters for which only charts of the ‘here be dragons’ variety exist.",
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"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "map notation indicating unknown dangers",
"word": "此處有龍"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "cǐchùyǒulóng",
"sense": "map notation indicating unknown dangers",
"word": "此处有龙"
},
{
"code": "la",
"lang": "Latin",
"sense": "map notation indicating unknown dangers",
"word": "hic sunt dracones"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"here be dragons"
],
"word": "here be dragons"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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