Minotaur
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(n.) A fabled monster, half man and half bull, confined in the labyrinth constructed by Daedalus in Crete.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
(i.e., the Bull of Minos) is one of the most repulsive conceptions of Grecian mythology. He is represented as the son of Pasiphae and a bull. for which she had conceived a passion. It was half man, half bull-a man with a bull's head. Minos, the husband of Pasiphae, shut him up in the Cnossian Labvrinth, and there fed him with youths and maidens, whom Athens was obliged to supply as an annual tribute, till Theseus, with the help of Ariadne, slew the monster. (See Minos). The Minotaur is, with some probability, regarded as a symbol of the Phoenician sungod.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia [3]
In the Greek mythology a monster, half-man half-bull with a bull's head, confined in the Labyrinth of Crete, fed by the annual tribute of seven youths and seven maidens of Athenian birth, till he was slain by Theseus with the help of Ariadne ( q. v .).
