sisyphean means incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile. It carries an Arena rating of 2178, earned across 31 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, sisyphean ranks #1 of 17,106 for Most Storied Words, #274 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #354 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #444 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words.
sisyphean is pronounced /ˌsɪsəˈfiːən/.
Why “sisyphean” is a great word
Denoting a task that is endlessly laborious and futile, perpetually undone by its own design. From the name Sisyphus (from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος, a mythical king condemned in Hades to eternally roll a boulder uphill) + the English adjectival suffix -ean (from Latin -anus, meaning 'pertaining to'). Unlike "herculean" (suggesting immense but potentially surmountable effort) or "tedious" (implying mere monotony), "Sisyphean" carries the specific, crushing gravity of eternal cyclical failure. It is the spreadsheet that refills itself upon completion, the gardener replanting seeds in soil that forgets warmth, the hand pushing sand up a dune only to meet it again at the base—the quiet understanding that the work is the punishment and the punishment is the work.
Etymology
From Sisyphus + -ean, from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος (Sísuphos). Sisyphus was a Greek mythical figure who was doomed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill in Tartarus, only to have it roll back down again.
adj
- Incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile.e.g.“Sisyphean task”
- Relating to Sisyphus.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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