Definition of "drake"

drake¹

/dɹeɪk/

noun
plural drakes
1. A male duck.

drake²

/dɹeɪk/

noun
plural drakes
1. A mayfly used as fishing bait.
2. (poetic) A dragon.
  Quotations
  Clay caught sight of the drake's wing outlined against the rising flames as it swept low over the desert.
  2016, Anthony Ryan, The Waking Fire: Book One of Draconis Memoria
3. (historical) A small piece of artillery.
  Quotations
  Two or three shots, made at them by a couple of drakes, made them stagger.
  1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707
4. A fiery meteor.
  Quotations
  The moon’s my constant Mistresse& the lowlie owle my morrowe.The flaming Drake and yͤ Nightcrowe makemee musicke to my sorrowe.
  c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)
5. A beaked galley, or Viking warship.