amazon means A tall, strong, athletic woman. It carries an Arena rating of 1487, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, amazon ranks #255 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #574 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #638 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,929 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
amazon is pronounced /ˈæm.ə.zən/.
Why “amazon” is a great word
A tall, strong, and athletic woman; the vast river and rainforest system of South America; and, in fairy chess, a piece combining the queen’s dominion with the knight’s oblique strike. From the Ancient Greek Ἀμαζών (Amazṓn), the name of a mythical race of female warriors. Unlike a 'warrior,' which denotes combat skill in general, or a 'giantees,' which signifies only exceptional height, 'Amazon' conjures a specific archetype of mythic female strength and independence. It is the bronze glint of a greave on a sun-browned thigh, the tea-colored, jungle-bearing flow of a river that swallows ships, and the unnerving, L-shaped leap of a piece that can strike from any angle—a word that carries the weight of an entire other world, and the particular loneliness of capability so complete it requires no witness.
Etymology
From Amazon, from Ancient Greek Ἀμαζών (Amazṓn).
noun
- A tall, strong, athletic woman.e.g.“Although the evidence for real Amazons is thin, women athletes are often dubbed amazons.”
- A fairy chess piece which combines the moves of the queen and the knight.
- An amazon parrot.
- A position for vaginal sex in which the insertive partner lies on their back with their knees pulled back, and the receptive partner, facing the other person, squats onto the penis.
- A member of a mythical race of female warriors inhabiting the Black Sea area.e.g.“When, therefore, one envisions a matriarchy, one should not conjure up visions of a gang of Amazons lopping off breasts and testicles to rule by force of arms.” — 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 149:
- A female warrior.
- A tall, strong, or athletic woman.
- Any of the large parrots from the genus Amazona.
name
- A river in South America, that flows through Brazil for about 4000 miles to the Atlantic.
- A region including much of this river; specifically, the region of the Amazon Rainforest, or of the Amazon River Basin.e.g.“Amazon milk frog”
- Amazon.com Inc., a very large Internet retailer.e.g.“Google is one of several Big Tech firms that has made an aggressive push into gaming in recent years, along with Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB).” — 2021 February 1, Rishi Iyengar, “Google will stop making video games for its Stadia platform”, in CNN Business:
verb
- To overwhelm or obliterate, in the context of an Internet start-up vastly outperforming its brick and mortar competition.e.g.“Those who hesitate risk being "amazoned," forfeiting business to an Internet newcomer, in the way that bookstore chains have lost ground to Amazon.com Inc., the online bookseller.” — 1998 November 4, George Anders, “Discomfort Zone: Some Big Companies Long to Embrace Web But Settle for Flirtation — They Fear Online Marketing Could Cause Sales Staffs And Distributors to Rebel — A R
- To order (something) on Amazon.e.g.“[…] “There are people who Uber everywhere, who Seamless everything, who Amazon everything, and render their lives completely smooth.”” — 2025 June 30, Adrienne Matei, quoting Josh Lora, “‘Hey man, I’m so sorry for your loss’: should you use AI to text?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 05 Jul 2025:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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