Definition of "basilisk"

And without more ado she [...] fixed her wonderful eyes upon me - more deadly than any Basilisk's - and pierced me through and through with their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air like chimes of silver bells.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887

As a revolutionary act of prophecy in an age of political science, Wissenkunst is a unique and anarchic expression of freedom, and not a new and aspiring system of indoctrination. If Wissenkunst is itself turned into political apologetics, then the fabulous plumed serpent is turned into a monster, a basilisk.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 249

A basilisk, in this context, is information that can hurt you simply because you are aware of it.

2019 June 13, Tom Chivers, The AI Does Not Hate You‎, Orion Publishing Group

As a guide to start your collection we'd suggest either iguanas, tejus, swifts, basilisks, horned toads or alligator lizards.

1965 March, Boys' Life, page 52

Awake ye men of Memphis, heare the clangeOf Scythian trumpets, heare the Baſiliſkes,That roaring, ſhake Damaſcus turrets downe, […]

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act IIII, scene i

Well, She is so basilisk; there's no death in her eyes […]

1870, The British drama: illustrated, volume 4, page 997

her gaze became more basilisk in its expression, and her countenance bore some similitude to that of a handsome fiend

1884, M. L. O'Byrne, Ill-won Peerages, Or, An Unhallowed Union, page 126

He had never seen her quite like this, so basilisk, so frightening

2004, Witi Tame Ihimaera, Whanau II, page 167