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Main definitions of asp in English

: asp1ASP2

asp1

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noun

(also asp viper)

  • 1A small southern European viper with an upturned snout.

    Vipera aspis, family Viperidae

    ‘Overseas they have a mixture of cobras, vipers, asps and snake types that we don't have here, that produce quite different effects.’
    • ‘But, he mused: ‘I feel that I may be taking an asp to my bosom.’’
    • ‘Surely the worst asps in this world are the ones one has clasped to the bosom.’
    • ‘If you were rotten, you might be a vole or an asp or a dung beetle.’
    • ‘Stretched out seductively on her cushion at Wolf's right elbow, she resembled an asp in greenery.’
    • ‘You try not to be seen, yet you snap out unexpectedly like a hidden asp.’
    • ‘The story of the asp, and of the suicide note, not only proclaimed Octavian's innocence: it gilded him with honour.’
    • ‘Thus animals could be seen as the embodiments of evil, like the asp of Macarius of Alexandria.’
    • ‘Have we, as a Nation, in our liberality, clasped an asp to our collective bosom.’
    • ‘Soon after Shirley Temple committed suicide by stinging herself with an asp's venom and her sadness was mirrored by thousands across the world.’
    1. 1.1
      another term for Egyptian cobra
      ‘In his play Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is delivered a basket of figs containing an asp, the venomous snake that ultimately causes her death.’
      • ‘She would not live this way, so history says she had an asp, which was an Egyptian cobra, brought to her hidden in a basket of figs.’
      • ‘This doesn't sound too appetizing to Cleo, and she has an asp - a rather poisonous snake - brought to her hidden in a basket of figs.’
      • ‘In the basket is an asp, a very poisonous snake which kills painlessly.’
      • ‘A rustic, who engages the Queen in quibbling banter, brings asps concealed in a basket of figs.’
      • ‘Tragedy and romance have never been so irresistibly entwined: the beautiful young queen, maddened by grief, hastening to join her dead lover, Mark Antony, through the kiss of an asp.’
      • ‘A clown enters her chamber before she is to be taken away by Caesar, bringing a basket of figs in which there is a poisonous asp which Cleopatra uses to kill herself.’
      • ‘‘He had a heart of gold, but he also had a tongue as sharp as a Gillette razor and a bite every bit as venomous as the asp that bit Cleopatra,’ he said.’
      • ‘You would think after Eve's shenanigans in the Garden of Eden and Cleopatra's mishap with her asp, we would have learned by now.’
      • ‘Cleopatra, fallen into Caesar's power but determined not to grace his triumph, takes her own life by the bite of an asp.’
      • ‘The Egyptian queen clutches the asp with a frightening tenacity, while the naked object of Zeus's golden shower grasps the coins from Olympus as one who fully understands the terms of the consummation being visited upon her.’
      • ‘Antony committed suicide while Cleopatra took the asp.’

Pronunciation

asp

/asp/ /æsp/

Origin

Middle English from Latin aspis, from Greek.

Main definitions of ASP in English

: asp1ASP2

ASP2

See synonyms for ASP on Thesaurus.com

Translate ASP into Spanish

abbreviation

  • Application service provider, a company providing internet access to software applications that would otherwise have to be installed on individual computers.