dryad means A female tree spirit.
dryad is pronounced /ˈdɹaɪəd/.
Why “dryad” is a great word
A female tree spirit or nymph in Greek mythology, intimately bound to a specific tree, most anciently an oak, from Old French driade, from Latin Dryas, Dryadis, from Ancient Greek Δρυάς (Druás, 'dryad'), from δρῦς (drûs, 'oak'), from Proto-Indo-European *dóru ('tree'), first attested in English in the late 14th century in the plural form 'Driades'. Unlike the general 'nymph,' a spirit of any brook or mountain, or the human 'druid,' a priest of a sacred grove, a dryad is the singular soul of a single tree. She is the whisper in the rustling oak leaves at dusk, the sudden coolness beneath an ancient bough, the faint, woody scent of bark after rain—a life so profoundly intertwined with its vessel that to harm the tree is to rend her own being, a mortality measured in centuries of green, then none.
Etymology
From Old French driade (“wood nymph”), from Latin Dryas, Dryadis, from Ancient Greek Δρυάς (Druás, “dryad”), from δρῦς (drûs, “oak”), from Proto-Indo-European *derew(o)- (“tree, wood”); cf. Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree”).
noun
- A female tree spirit.
- mountain avens, dryas
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.