harpy:
(plural: ‘harpies‘ — for the right pronunciation, please click here)
a mythical harpy
a creature in old stories – head of a woman and body of a bird – that is very cruel and greedy;
a cruel greedy person;
a cruel and bad-tempered woman,
a modern day harpy
A mythical harpy known to torment people is also called a ‘snatcher’ because it is/was mostly used to snatch away food from people as a punishment.
There has been this practice of calling powerful ruthless women in politics harpies as these sort of female politicians torment/punish people as the mythical in Greek mythology tormented people.
It isn’t uncommon for readers to come upon article in which difficult women are described as harpies, for instance, in an article titled ‘Coulter/Palin, Two Harpies in the Same Corner’ dated March 17, 2012, by Carl, also known as ‘sofarsogoo’, Anne Coulter and Sarah Palin, the most talked about politicians in 2008 US Presidential elections, are referred to as “two harpies”!
