harpy• McAllister wanted to go in and do something, anything, to stop such a harpy from hurting him.• That was when, with a glass-cracking shriek, the harpybrought him down from behind.• The harpies from Paris running the road houses which must inevitably multiply will be a worse scourge than the mosquitoes.
(1800-1900)Harpy name of a creature in ancient Greek stories with the head of a woman and the body of a bird ((16-21 centuries)), from Greekharpyia“seizer”