amazon

plural amazons

1. A tall, strong, athletic woman.

   Although the evidence for real Amazons is thin, women athletes are often dubbed amazons.

2. board gamesA fairy chess piece which combines the moves of the queen and the knight.

   The amazon is simply a queen-knight hybrid, capable of moving as either piece.

   2018 October 12, aabicus, “My 7 Favorite Fairy Chess Pieces”, in The Daily SPUF

   1 more example

   In Triple-guard promotion chess (GPJ) a pawn newly triple-guarded by pieces other than pawns promotes to the combined value of the guarding pieces. Thus after b3 in the opening position a3 promotes to amazon, R+B+N, from triple guard by Ra1, Nb1, Bc1.

   2010 August 21, G. P. Jelliss, “Simple Chess Variants”, in Mayhematics, page 8

3. An amazon parrot.
4. A position for vaginal sex in which the insertive partner lies on their back with their knees pulled back, and the receptive partner, facing the other person, squats onto the penis.

   Antonyms: mating press

plural Amazons

1. Greekhuman sciencesA member of a mythical race of female warriors inhabiting the Black Sea area.

   When, therefore, one envisions a matriarchy, one should not conjure up visions of a gang of Amazons lopping off breasts and testicles to rule by force of arms.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 149

2. A female warrior.

   1 more example

   In some parts of Africa, Asia, and South America, amazon cultures still existed during the Middle Ages, such as that ruled by Queen Nzingha in Angola, who led her amazon army against the Portuguese in a series of wars during the first half of the seventeenth century. In Dahomey also in traditionally gynarchal West Africa, the army was made up of amazons even through the nineteenth century.

   1976, Xenia S. Williams, “The Power of History...or History Is Written by the Powerful”, in Dave Peterson, Jonathan Cross, Lyn Rosen, editors, A Gay Person's Guide to New England, 2nd edition

3. A tall, strong, or athletic woman.

1. attributivesometimesA river in South America, that flows through Brazil for about 4000 miles to the Atlantic.
2. attributivesometimesA region including much of this river; specifically, the region of the Amazon Rainforest, or of the Amazon River Basin.

   Amazon milk frog

   1 more example

   In February, a young man from an isolated Indigenous tribe in Brazil made brief contact with the outside world before returning to the Amazon rainforest.

   2025 April 4, Lex Harvey and Esha Mitra, “US tourist arrested after allegedly attempting to contact ‘world’s most isolated’ tribe”, in CNN, archived from the original on 14 Apr 2025

plural Amazons

1. Any of the large parrots from the genus Amazona.

1. Amazon.com Inc., a very large Internet retailer.

   Google is one of several Big Tech firms that has made an aggressive push into gaming in recent years, along with Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB).

   2021 February 1, Rishi Iyengar, “Google will stop making video games for its Stadia platform”, in CNN Business

present singular third person Amazons · participle present Amazoning · participle past Amazoned · past Amazoned

1. transitiveTo overwhelm or obliterate, in the context of an Internet start-up vastly outperforming its brick and mortar competition.

   Amazon.com may soon be "amazoning" a few more industries.

   1999, "Amazon Expands", InternetWeek (789), 1999-11-15, p. 11 http://search.proquest.com/docview/226901337

   5 more examples

   Those who hesitate risk being "amazoned," forfeiting business to an Internet newcomer, in the way that bookstore chains have lost ground to Amazon.com Inc., the online bookseller.

   1998 November 4, George Anders, “Discomfort Zone: Some Big Companies Long to Embrace Web But Settle for Flirtation — They Fear Online Marketing Could Cause Sales Staffs And Distributors to Rebel — A Risk of Getting ‘Amazoned’”, in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

   Venture capitalists' desks are thick with business plans promising ‘we're going to Amazon the insurance/travel/property business...’

   1999 Aug, Andrew Wileman, “Smart cookies: Get set to Amazon”, in Management Today, page 79

   Take the example of MetalSite.com, which is owned by steel companies. The steel companies aren't getting "Amazoned" by a start-up but, rather, they are doing the "Amazoning" within their own industry.

   1999, Tim Smith, InternetWeek (786), "Getting Customers Totally Integrated – Cisco CIO Pete Solvik", 1999-10-25, p. 98 http://search.proquest.com/docview/226888867

   Gone are the days when they agonized about being "Amazoned", or blind-sided by a dot-com ....

   2000 November 20, Bob Tedeschi, “E-Commerce Report: Web and catalog businesses are crossing into storefront territory, creating parallel avenues of retailing”, in The New York Times, page C12

   In other industries, established companies are pulling people and money away from their Internet operations, as their fear of being "Amazoned" by start-ups has subsided.

   2001 July 4, Saul Hansell, “Web Sales of Airline Tickets Are Making Hefty Advances”, in The New York Times, page A1

2. transitiveTo order (something) on Amazon.

   […] “There are people who Uber everywhere, who Seamless everything, who Amazon everything, and render their lives completely smooth.”

   2025 June 30, Adrienne Matei, quoting Josh Lora, “‘Hey man, I’m so sorry for your loss’: should you use AI to text?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 05 Jul 2025