What is "druid"

Druid \Dru"id\, n. [L. Druides; of Celtic origin; cf. Ir. & Gael. draoi, druidh, magician, Druid, W. derwydd Druid.]

1. One of an order of priests which in ancient times existed among certain branches of the Celtic race, especially among the Gauls and Britons.

   Note: The Druids superintended the affairs of religion and morality, and exercised judicial functions. They practiced divination and magic, and sacrificed human victims as a part of their worship. They consisted of three classes; the bards, the vates or prophets, and the Druids proper, or priests. Their most sacred rites were performed in the depths of oak forests or of caves.

2. A member of a social and benevolent order, founded in London in 1781, and professedly based on the traditions of the ancient Druids. Lodges or groves of the society are established in other countries.

   Druid stones, a name given, in the south of England, to weatherworn, rough pillars of gray sandstone scattered over the chalk downs, but in other countries generally in the form of circles, or in detached pillars.

1560s, from French druide, from Latin druidae (plural), from Gaulish Druides, from Celtic compound *dru-wid-, probably representing Old Celtic *derwos "true"/PIE *dru- "tree" (especially oak; see tree (n.)) + *wid- "to know" (see vision). Hence, literally, perhaps, "they who know the oak" (perhaps in allusion to divination from mistletoe). Anglo-Saxon, too, used identical words to mean "tree" and "truth" (treow).\n

\nThe English form comes via Latin, not immediately from Celtic. The Old Irish form was drui (dative and accusative druid; plural druad); Modern Irish and Gaelic draoi, genitive druadh "magician, sorcerer." Not to be confused with United Ancient Order of Druids, secret benefit society founded in London 1781.

n. One of an order of priests among certain groups of Celts before the adoption of Abrahamic religions.

n. a pre-Christian priest among the Celts of ancient Gaul and Britain and Ireland

In role-playing games, a druid is a character class that is generally portrayed as using nature-based magical abilities and striving to protect nature from civilized intrusion. Druid characters tend to have abilities that involve healing, weather or plant related spells, summoning animal allies, and shapeshifting.

A druid was a member of the learned class in ancient Celtic cultures. Some were priests, but the title was also used for doctors, law-speakers, and other high-ranking professionals.

Druid can also refer to:

• A female druid (or "druidess")
• A member of the Ancient Order of Druids, a social service organisation.
• Neo-druidism, a variety of modern spiritual or religious practices, appealing to perceived aspects of ancient Druidic practice.
• Druid (character class), a character that represents a magical priest of nature in role-playing games
  • Druid (Dungeons & Dragons), a character class in Dungeons & Dragons
• a rank within the Gorsedd of Bards.
• Druid (band), a British progressive rock band from the late 1970s
• Druid (open-source data store)
• Druid Theatre Company, a Theatre company in Galway, Ireland.
• Druid (video game), a computer game for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum
• In software, another name for a wizard, a user interface function that leads a user through a series of steps
• The Druid King, a 2003 historical novel by American novelist Norman Spinrad
• USS Druid (SP-321), a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919

Druids can also refer to:

• The Druids, an early 1970s British folk band
• Druids (film), a 2001 film about Gallic druids resisting the Roman armies
• Shannara Druids, an order of historians, philosophers, magic-users, teachers and researchers in the Shannara series of fantasy novels by Terry Brooks
• Druides - a WWII spy ring, led by Georges Lamarque, that provided V-1 and V-2 Intelligence

• Druids - a hairpin bend at Brands Hatch racetrack

The druid is a playable character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Druids wield nature-themed magic. Unlike the cleric, druids do not have special powers against undead and, in some editions, cannot use metal armor. Druids have a unique ability that allows them to change into various animal forms, and various other qualities that assist them in natural settings.

Druid is an action-adventure game developed by Vortex Software and published by Firebird in for the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64, also ported to Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. The game was ported by Nippon Dexter for the MSX in Japan-only in 1988. Another Japanese port of Druid entitled was made for the Famicom Disk System by Jaleco in 1988. The game was followed by Druid II: Enlightenment and Warlock: The Avenger.

Druid was a 1970s progressive rock band from England, and initially came to public attention by winning a 1974 unsigned band contest by Melody Maker magazine. The band went on to perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test and to record two albums. Their sound was notably influenced by Yes.

Former member Cedric Sharpley, who went on to back Gary Numan in the band Tubeway Army, died from a heart attack on 13 March 2012.

Druid, in comics, may refer to:

• Druid, the surname of father and son, Marvel Comics characters:
  • Doctor Druid, a Marvel Comics superhero, named Anthony Druid, who featured in a 1995 mini-series called ''Druid
  • Druid, Doctor Druid's son Sebastian. a member of the third incarnation of the Howling Commandos, the Secret Warriors
• Dredmund the Druid, a Marvel Comics supervillain
• Druid is the name of two DC Comics supervillains:
  • Druid, one a foe of Hawkman
  • Druid, a member of the Cadre
• The Druid, an Archie Comics foe of the Mighty Crusaders
• Druid Walsh, a Marvel Comics character and foe of Moon Knight
• Druid Fluid, a surreal, stream-of-consciousness comic by independent cartoonist Flex Lamont

A druid was a member of the educated, professional class among the Celtic peoples of Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and possibly elsewhere during the Iron Age. The druid class included law-speakers, poets and doctors, among other learned professions, although the best known among the druids were the religious leaders.

Very little is known about the ancient druids. They left no written accounts of themselves, and the only evidence are a few descriptions left by Greek, Roman, and various scattered authors and artists, as well as stories created by medieval writers. While archaeological evidence has been uncovered pertaining to the religious practices of the Iron Age people, "not one single artefact or image has been unearthed that can undoubtedly be connected with the ancient druids." Various recurring themes emerge in a number of the Greco-Roman accounts of the druids, including that they performed animal and even human sacrifice, believed in a form of reincarnation, and held a high position in Gaulish society. Next to nothing is known for certain about their religious practices, except for the ritual of oak and mistletoe as described by Pliny the Elder.

The earliest known reference to the druids dates to 200 BCE, although the oldest actual description comes from the Roman military general Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). Later Greco-Roman writers also described the Druids, including Cicero, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.

In about 750 CE the word druid appears in a poem by Blathmac, who wrote about Jesus, saying that he was "... better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king who was a bishop and a complete sage." The druids then also appear in some of the medieval tales from Christianized Ireland like the " Táin Bó Cúailnge", where they are largely portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the coming of Christianity. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries, fraternal and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism. Many popular modern notions about druids have no connection to the druids of the Iron Age and are largely based on much later inventions, misconceptions, or pure fantasy.

Druid is a column-oriented, open-source, distributed data store written in Java. Druid is designed to quickly ingest massive quantities of event data, and provide low-latency queries on top of the data. The name Druid comes from the shapeshifting Druid class in many role-playing games, to reflect the fact that the architecture of the system can shift to solve different types of data problems.

Druid is commonly used in business intelligence/ OLAP applications to analyze high volumes of real-time and historical data. Druid is used in production by technology companies such as Alibaba, Airbnb, Cisco, eBay, Netflix, Paypal, and Yahoo.