What is "wyvern"

Wiver \Wiv"er\, Wivern \Wiv"ern\, n. [OE. wivere a serpent, OF. wivre, guivre, F. givre, guivre, wiver, from L. vipera; probably influenced by OHG. wipera, from the Latin. See Viper, and cf. Weever.]

1. (Her.) A fabulous two-legged, winged creature, like a cockatrice, but having the head of a dragon, and without spurs. [Written also wyvern.]

   The jargon of heraldry, its griffins, its mold warps, its wiverns, and its dragons.
   --Sir W. Scott.

2. (Zo["o]l.) The weever.

c.1600, formed (with excrescent -n) from Middle English wyver (c.1300), from Anglo-French wivre, from Old North French form of Old French guivre "snake," from Latin vipera "viper" (see viper). In heraldry, a winged dragon with eagle's feet and a serpent's barbed tail.

n. (context heraldry mythology English) Mythical dragon-like creature, having wings, only two legs and a barbed tail.

n. a fire-breathing dragon used in medieval heraldry; had the head of a dragon and the tail of a snake and a body with wings and two legs [syn: wivern]

The wyvern in its various forms is important to heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States and United Kingdom). It is a popular creature in European and British literature, video games, and modern fantasy. The wyvern is often (but not always) associated with cold weather and ice, and it will sometimes possess a venomous bite and rarely have the ability to breathe fire.

Wyvern is a two-player collectible card game featuring dragons and wyverns battling for treasure. The game was produced by U.S. Games Systems, Inc., with the original product launch in January 1994.

In the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, the wyvern (pronounced WIH-vern (as in "did learn") or WHY-vern) is a species of dragon.

A wyvern or wivern is a two-legged dragon often represented in heraldry.

Wyvern or wivern can also refer to:

• Wyvern, the pen-name of Colonel Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert
• Wyvern (film), a Sci Fi Pictures original film.
• Wyvern (card game), a collectible card game.
• Wyvern (Dungeons & Dragons), wyverns as they appear in the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons.
• Wyvern (video game), a MMORPG created by Cabochon Technologies
• Wyvern, Nova Scotia
• Wyvern (vessel), Norwegian sailboat that is part of Stavanger Maritime Museum
• Wyvern (programming language), a programming language for Engineering Mobile and Web Applications

• , the name of more than one ship of the British Royal Navy

• Radio Wyvern, also known as Wyvern FM, a UK radio station
• Vauxhall Wyvern, a four-door saloon car that was manufactured from 1948 to 1957
• Westland Wyvern, a British turboprop fighter aircraft
• The Wyvern, a theatre in Swindon
• X-02 Wyvern, a fictional plane in the Ace Combat series of video games

Wyvern was a 2-dimensional Graphical MUD/ MMORPG game which was released for public play on February 4, 2001 by creator Steve Yegge through his company Cabochon Inc. The game was announced to be permanently down on November 24, 2013. Wyvern was a free game that was influenced by games such as Crossfire and NetHack. Wyvern was available on all platforms through a pure Java version.

Once users downloaded the stand-alone game client, they selected a character from a collection of fantasy races. Users navigated through the game through a mixture of mouse-clicking and text-based commands. Players moved throughout the lands of Wyvern, adventuring in areas that were created and modified by moderators known as Wizards.

In addition to allowing access to the game via a downloadable client for desktop users, Wyvern offered its users the ability to play the game with handheld devices. In 2002, the game won the grand prize of $10,000 in the JPDA 2002 application developers contest, for the Java application which allows PDA users access to the game. It was stated that it won for its "originality and extra innovation" in comparison to the other applications submitted to the contest.

The server has been down (and gameplay therefore suspended) since April 2011.

In March 2012 the game's creator, Steve Yegge (Rhialto), responded to the question of "Are you going to bring Wyvern back?" with the answer: "Patience. I'm working on it."

An update on the return of Wyvern came in April 2013 with the creation of the subreddit reddit.com/r/wyvernrpg. Rhialto posted several updates, with his vision of a cloud-based Wyvern initially to be brought back on a mobile platform. He had a new website for the game in the works (wyvern-web.appspot.com) and had received clearance from Google to use Wyvern as a side project.

The latest news by Steve Yegge was released through the Wyvern forums and subreddit stating that due to legal issues, Wyvern could never come back online. However, after two years of negotiation with the original owners, Yegge became the sole owner of the game. Yegge currently has a mobile version of Wyvern in development to be released in 2016.

Wyvern is a computer programming language for development of web and mobile applications. It aims to provide a way to safely use multiple programming languages within the same program so programmers can use the language most appropriate for each function while at the same time increasing the program's security.

It is currently in a prototype stage and distributed under a GPLv2 license.

Wyvern is a 2009 Canadian-American made-for-television horror film produced by RHI Entertainment that premiered in the United States on the Syfy Channel on January 1, 2009. Written by Jason Bourque and directed by Steven R. Monroe, the film is the 15th of the Maneater Series produced under an agreement with Sci Fi Pictures. The film stars Nick Chinlund as Jake Suttner, a trucker who must stop a wyvern from eating the residents in the small town of Beaver Mills, Alaska. It was released in Region 1 on DVD on August 18, 2009. It was also released under the alternative title Dragon. In Japan, it is titled Jurassic Predator.