sphinx

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sphinx

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From Middle English Spynx, from Latin Sphinx, from Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx), perhaps either from σφίγγω (sphíngō, “to squeeze, to strangle”) (whence also sphincter), of Pre-Greek origin, or from Egyptian (šzp-ꜥnḫ, “divine image”, literally “living image”).

• enPR: sfĭngks, IPA^(key): /ˈsfɪŋks/

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋks

sphinx (plural sphinxes or sphinges)

1. (mythology) A creature with the head of a person and the body of an animal, commonly a lion.
   • 1815 September 10 – December 14, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude”, in Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude: And Other Poems, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, ; and Carpenter and Son,  y S. Hamilton, , published 1816, →OCLC, page 9:

     [W]hatsoe'er of strange / Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, / Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, / Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills. / Conceals.

2. A person who keeps their thoughts and intentions secret; an enigmatic or impassive person.
   • 1985 February 21, Antonio Lamer, “Brouillard Also Known As Chatel v. The Queen, 1985 CanLII 56 (SCC)”, in CanLII‎, retrieved 22 October 2021:

     ...it is clear that judges are no longer required to be as passive as they once were; to be what I call sphinx judges. We now not only accept that a judge may intervene in the adversarial debate, but also believe that it is sometimes essential for him to do so for justice in fact to be done.

3. (dated) A mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx), formerly classified as a baboon, and called sphinx baboon.
4. A sphinx moth.
5. (rare) A sphincter.
   • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 836:

     Constance said boastfully, ‘My sphinxes are strong and in good repair. I order you to come.’

• (person who keeps his/her thoughts and intentions secret): enigma

• androsphinx
• criosphinx
• gynosphinx
• hieracosphinx

• chimera

sphinx (third-person singular simple present sphinxes, present participle sphinxing, simple past and past participle sphinxed)

1. (transitive) To decorate with sphinxes.

   a marble sphinxed chimney-piece

2. (transitive, intransitive) To adopt the posture of the Sphinx.

   A hot lion with a very bloated stomach … will adopt either a sphinxed or a squatting posture which takes some of the weight off its belly.

   Several animals maintained either a crouched … or a sphinxing posture (abdomen on the floor)

3. (transitive, intransitive) To be inscrutable, often through silence.
   • 1900, Leigh Gordon Giltner, “Love and Death”, in The Path of Dreams: Poems, page 27:

     The sphinxèd riddle of the Universe,
     Nature's unsolved enigma, who may prove?

   • 1933 February, Gladys Hall, “The Hollywood Frivolities of 1932”, in Motion Picture, volume 45, page 29:

     Then there are the folks trying to do a Garbo on us […] Janet Gaynor, so they tell, is sphinxing it and has gone into a Retirement, with "Nothing to Say — Please Go Away" written on the doormat.

   • 1964, John Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, page 22:

     What with Fisher whole-hogging on one side, and K. of K. sphinxing on the other, Churchill had his work cut out to get any sort of agreement at all.

4. (intransitive) To behave in a manner characteristic of the Sphinx.
   • 1933, Roycroft Junto Outlines, The Roycrofters, page 412:

     Perhaps Nature is sphinxing us on purpose. Whatever her objects may be, perhaps she gets her work done better when she appeals to our gambling instincts. If you knew for certain exactly how your marriage was going to turn out […]

   • 1986, Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism, page 53:

     And then he summarizes his fears with a reference to that icon which […] stood for the feminine threat to civilization: “Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: it is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.” Male fears of an engulfing femininity are here projected onto the metropolitan masses, who did indeed represent a threat to the rational bourgeois order. […] We may want to relate Le Bon's social psychology of the masses back to modernism's own fears of being sphinxed.

Borrowed from Latin sphinx f, from Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx).

• IPA^(key): /sfɛ̃ks/

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sphinx m (plural sphinx, feminine sphinge)

1. (Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology) sphinx

• “sphinx”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

From Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx), perhaps from σφίγγω (sphíngō, “to squeeze, to strangle”) or from Egyptian (šzp-ꜥnḫ, “divine image”, literally “living image”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /spʰinks/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /sfinks/,

sphinx f (genitive sphingis); third declension

1. sphinx

Third-declension noun (non-Greek-type or Greek-type, normal variant).

• sphinx in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “sphinx”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎
• “sphinx”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “sphinx”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray