Gordian (gordian)

and n. [L. Gordius, a. ( nodus Gordius, the Gordian knot), undoing it would become master of Asia. Alexander of Macedon solved the difficulty by cutting the knot with his sword, and the oracle was fulfilled. Hence the phrase is applied to any inextricable difficulty; and to cut the Gor dian knot, or the knot, is to overcome a difficulty in a bold, trenchant, or violent way. Sin and shame are ever tied together With gordian knots , of such a strong thread spun, They cannot without violence be undone. Webster, Devil's Law-Case, ii. 4. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Jefferson, Correspondence, I. 286. (b) In her., a name sometimes given to the Navarre knot, or the figure of interlinked chains which forms the bearing of the kings of Navarre. II. n. [l. c.] 1. A complication; a Gordian IMG:content-2520.jpg:[graphic] knot. An insolent, To cut a gordian when he could not loose it. Chapman , Bu y d'Ambois, iv. 1. My title Needs not your school-defences, but my sword, With which the gordian of your sophistry Being cut, shall shew th' imposture. Fletcher (and others ), Bloody Brother, i. 1. 2. [ gordian (gôr'di-an), v. t. [ Locks bright enough to make me mad; And they were simply gordian'd up and braided, Leaving, in naked comeline , unshaded, Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow. Keats , Endymion, i. gordii, n. Plural of gordius , 2. Gordiidæ (gôr-di'i-dě), n . pl . [NL., Gordius +-ida.] A family of nematoid worms; the hairworms. They have an elongated filiform body with a ventral cord and without oral papillæ, the mouth and anterior part of the alimentary canal obliterated in the adult, the paired ovaries and testes opening with the anus near the posterior end of the body; the tail of the male is forked, without spicules. Also Gordiadæ , Gordiacea. In the young stage they live in the body cavity of predatory insects, and are provided with a mouth. At the pairing time they pa into the water, where they become sexually mature. The embryos, which are provided with a circle of spines, bore through the egg membrane, migrate into insect larvæ, and there encyst. Water beetles and other predatory aquatic insects eat the encysted young forms, which then develop in the body cavity of their new and larger host to young Gordiidæ . Claus, Zoology (trans.), I. 356.