sphinx means an ancient, large statue in Egypt, with the face of a man and the body of a lion, lying near the Great Pyramids. It carries an Arena rating of 1403, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, sphinx ranks #389 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #738 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #846 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #1,235 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
sphinx is pronounced /ˈsfɪŋks/.
Why “sphinx” is a great word
A mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion, known in Greek mythology as a riddling monster and in Egyptian art as a monumental statue. From Middle English Spynx, from Latin Sphinx, from Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx), perhaps from σφίγγω (sphíngō, "to bind tightly, to strangle"). Unlike "chimera," a shifting patchwork of lion, goat, and serpent, or "enigma," a puzzle dissolved by logic, the sphinx is inscrutability incarnate. It is the desert silence broken only by a voice offering death, the limestone gaze with the patience of four thousand years, and the terrible intimacy of a face that watches and waits—a fixed form built to guard the volatile frontier between knowing and oblivion.
Etymology
From Middle English Spynx, from Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx), perhaps from σφίγγω (sphíngō, “bind tightly, to strangle”). The appurtenance of Egyptian Szp:p-A53 (šzp, “image, statue, sphinx”) or Szp:p-A53-anx-n:x (šzp-ꜥnḫ, “living image”) remains unclear.
name
- An ancient, large statue in Egypt, with the face of a man and the body of a lion, lying near the Great Pyramids.
- One of the many offspring of Typhon and Echidna, a winged lion-like creature with a woman's face, who dwelt near the city of Thebes in Boeotia and terrorized travelers by posing riddles, killing those who failed to answer correctly; after Oedipus solved her riddle, she committed suicide out of frustration.
noun
- A creature with the head of a person and the body of an animal, commonly a lion.e.g.“[W]hatsoe'er of strange / Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, / Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, / Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills. / Conceals.” — 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 C
- A person who keeps their thoughts and intentions secret; an enigmatic or impassive person.
- A mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx), formerly classified as a baboon, and called sphinx baboon.
- A sphinx moth.
- A sphincter.e.g.“Constance said boastfully, ‘My sphinxes are strong and in good repair. I order you to come.’” — 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 836:
verb
- To decorate with sphinxes.e.g.“a marble sphinxed chimney-piece”
- To adopt the posture of the Sphinx.e.g.“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.”
- To be inscrutable, often through silence.e.g.“The sphinxèd riddle of the Universe,
Nature's unsolved enigma, who may prove?” — 1900, Leigh Gordon Giltner, “Love and Death”, in The Path of Dreams: Poems, page 27:
- To behave in a manner characteristic of the Sphinx.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- sphinxian 73% match — Of or relating to the mythological sphinx. vs sphinx →
- hieracosphinx 72% match — A mythical beast found in Egyptian sculpture and European heraldry, being a lion with the head of a falcon. vs sphinx →
- gynosphinx 70% match — A sphinx with the head of a woman. vs sphinx →
- androcephalous 67% match — Having a human head (upon an animal's body), like the Egyptian sphinx. vs sphinx →
- androsphinx 64% match — A sphinx with the head of a man. vs sphinx →
- manticore 62% match — A beast with the body of a lion (usually red), the tail of a scorpion, and the head/face of a man with a mouth filled with multiple rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), said to be able to shoot spikes from its tail or mane to paralyse prey. It may be horned, winged, or both; its voice is described as a mixture of pipes and trumpets. vs sphinx →
- criosphinx 62% match — A sphinx with the head of a ram. vs sphinx →
- sphynx 61% match — A domestic cat of a breed with little or no hair, a narrow long head, and webbed feet. vs sphinx →