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ouroboros.

A serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail, a representation of the continuous cycle of life and death.

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/uːˈrɒbəˌrɒs//uːˈrɒbərəs//ˌuːrəˈbɒrəs//(j)ʊ(ə)rə(ʊ)ˈborəs/
  1. A serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail, a representation of the continuous cycle of life and death.

  2. Anything of a circular or recursive nature.

    broadly
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ers-der. Ancient Greek οὐρά (ourá) Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- Proto-Indo-European *-sḱéti Proto-Indo-European *gʷi-gʷr̥h₃-sḱé-ti Proto-Hellenic *gʷigʷrṓskō Ancient Greek βιβρώσκω (bibrṓskō)der. Ancient Greek -βόρος (-bóros) Ancient Greek οὐροβόρος (ourobóros)bor. English ouroboros From Ancient Greek οὐροβόρος (ourobóros, “tail-devouring”, a compound of οὐρά (ourá, “tail”) + -βόρος (-bóros, “-devouring”, which is derived from the verb βιβρώσκω (bibrṓskō, “to eat up”))).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.