Also 7 wiu-, wiverne, 8–9 wivern (8 wefforne). [f. prec., with excrescent -n (see note on BITTERN1).]
1. Her. A representation of a chimerical animal imagined as a winged dragon with two feet like those of an eagle, and a serpent-like, barbed tail.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, III. xxvi. 182. So doth the Wiuerne partake of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs,… and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile.
1682. J. Gibbon, Introd. ad Lat. Blazoniam, 123. This Dragon hath but two Legs, and so is the same with our Wiverne.
1716. S. Kent, Gramm. Her., s.v. Drake, He beareth Argent, a Wivern, his Wings displaid and Tail nowed Gules.
1780. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), V. 3605/2. A Wivern volant Bendways Sable. Ibid. A Wyvern with a human Face.
1822. Gage, Hengrave, 38. Argent, a squirrel, seiant, eating a nut, impaling a coat argent, on a chevron, between three wyvern’s heads erased sable.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., x. 68. Two Wyverns also support the shield of the Duke of Rutland.
1882. Cussans, Her. (1893), 100. The wings of the Dragon … and Wyvern are always represented as addorsed.
attrib. 1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 214/1. He beareth Vert,… a Wivern-Wolf. Ibid. He beareth Azure, a Wivern-Serpent, Or.
b. An image or figure of this monster.
1863. Chr. Remembrancer, Oct., 436. The name of S. Romanus … is still dear to the boys and girls of Norman villages by sundry processions of dragons, wyverns,… made of combustibles.
1864. Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 17. Sir Aylmer Aylmer, that almighty man … Whose blazing wyvern weathercock’d the spire. Ibid., 516. The manorial lord … Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read … a letter from his child.
2. Such a monster conceived as having a real existence.
a. 1700[?]. in Surtees, Hist. Durham (1823), III. 243. Sir John Conyers, Knt., slew yt monstrous, and poysonous vermine or wyverne, an aske or werme, wh[ich] overthrew and devoured many people in fight.
1820. Surtees, Ibid., II. 172. [He] goes forth to slay wolf, bear, or wivern.
1835. Browning, Paracelsus, II. 454. Lakes which … Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun.
1869. Tales fr. Blackwood, XV. 74. As if she had been a Wyvern or a Gorgon.
