[drag-uh
n] 
| 1. | a mythical monster generally represented as a huge, winged reptile with crested head and enormous claws and teeth, and often spouting fire. |
| 2. | Archaic. a huge serpent or snake. |
| 3. | Bible. a large animal, possibly a large snake or crocodile. |
| 4. | the dragon, Satan. |
| 5. | a fierce, violent person. |
| 6. | a very watchful and strict woman. |
| 7. | flying dragon. |
| 8. | Botany. any of several araceous plants, as Arisaema dracontium (green dragon or dragonroot), the flowers of which have a long, slender spadix and a green, shorter spathe. |
| 9. | a short musket carried by a mounted infantryman in the 16th and 17th centuries. |
| 10. | a soldier armed with such a musket. |
| 11. | (initial capital letter) Astronomy. the constellation Draco. |
| Dra·co 2 (drā'kō) n. A constellation in the polar region of the Northern Hemisphere near Cepheus and Ursa Major. Also called Dragon. [Latin dracō, dragon; see dragon.] |
| drag·on (drāg'ən) n.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin dracō, dracōn-, large serpent, from Greek drakōn; see derk- in Indo-European roots.] |
| Drag·on (drāg'ən) n. See Draco2. |
DRAGON
1. An Esprit project aimed at providing effective support to reuse in real-time distributed Ada application programs.
2. An implementation language used by BTI Computer Systems.
E-mail: Pat Helland
[The Jargon File]
(1994-12-08)
dragon
[MIT] A program similar to a daemon, except that it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to perform various secondary tasks. A typical example would be an accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in, accumulates load-average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they were, what they were running, etc., along with some random picture (such as a unicorn, Snoopy or the Enterprise), which was generated by the "name dragon". Use is rare outside MIT, under Unix and most other operating systems this would be called a "background demon" or daemon. The best-known Unix example of a dragon is cron. At SAIL, they called this sort of thing a "phantom".
[The Jargon File]
Dragon
(1.) Heb. tannim, plural of tan. The name of some unknown creature inhabiting desert places and ruins (Job 30:29; Ps. 44:19; Isa. 13:22; 34:13; 43:20; Jer. 10:22; Micah 1:8; Mal. 1:3); probably, as translated in the Revised Version, the jackal (q.v.). (2.) Heb. tannin. Some great sea monster (Jer. 51:34). In Isa. 51:9 it may denote the crocodile. In Gen. 1:21 (Heb. plural tanninim) the Authorized Version renders "whales," and the Revised Version "sea monsters." It is rendered "serpent" in Ex. 7:9. It is used figuratively in Ps. 74:13; Ezek. 29:3. In the New Testament the word "dragon" is found only in Rev. 12:3, 4, 7, 9, 16, 17, etc., and is there used metaphorically of "Satan." (See WHALE.)