From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
python
n 1: large Old World boas
2: a soothsaying spirit or a person who is possessed by such a
spirit
3: (Greek mythology) dragon killed by Apollo at Delphi
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Python \Py"thon\, n. [NL., fr. L. Python the serpent slain near
Delphi by Apollo, Gr. ?.]
1. (Zool.) Any species of very large snakes of the genus
Python, and allied genera, of the family {Pythonid[ae]}.
They are nearly allied to the boas. Called also {rock
snake}.
[1913 Webster]
Note: The pythons have small pelvic bones, or anal spurs, two
rows of subcaudal scales, and pitted labials. They are
found in Africa, Asia, and the East Indies.
[1913 Webster]
2. A diviner by spirits. "[Manasses] observed omens, and
appointed pythons." --4 Kings xxi. 6 (Douay version).
[1913 Webster]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
Python
1. <language> A simple, high-level interpreted language
invented by Guido van Rossum <guido@cwi.nl> in 1991. Python
combines ideas from ABC, C, Modula-3 and Icon. It
bridges the gap between C and shell programming, making it
suitable for rapid prototyping or as an extension language
for C applications. It is object-oriented and supports
packages, modules, classes, user-defined exceptions, a
good C interface, dynamic loading of C modules and has no
arbitrary restrictions.
Python is available for many platforms, including Unix,
Windows, DOS, OS/2, Macintosh and Amoeba.
Latest version: 2.5, as of 2007-02-21.
{(http://python.org/)}.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.python.
(2007-02-21)
2. <compiler> A compiler for CMU Common LISP. Python is
more sophisticated than other Common Lisp compilers. It
produces better code and is easier to use. The programming
environment based on the Hemlock editor is better integrated
than GNU Emacs based environments.
(1997-02-27)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
Python
/pi:'thon/
In the words of its author, "the other scripting language" (other than
Perl, that is). Python's design is notably clean, elegant, and well
thought through; it tends to attract the sort of programmers who find
Perl grubby and exiguous. Some people revolt at its use of whitespace
to define logical structure by indentation, objecting that this harks
back to the horrible old fixed-field languages of the 1960s. Python's
relationship with Perl is rather like the BSD community's
relationship to Linux -- it's the smaller party in a (usually
friendly) rivalry, but the average quality of its developers is
generally conceded to be rather higher than in the larger community it
competes with. There's a Python resource page at
http://www.python.org. See also Guido, BDFL.