Definition of sphinxes Sphinxes

sphinx•es

We found 3 definitions of sphinxes from 2 different sources.

What does sphinxes mean?

🔤

Noun Plural: sphinxes
sphinx - (Greek mythology) a riddling winged monster with a woman's head and breast on a lion's body; daughter of Typhon
		mythical creature, mythical monster a monster renowned in folklore and myth
sphinx - one of a number of large stone statues with the body of a lion and the head of a man that were built by the ancient Egyptians
sphinx - an inscrutable person who keeps his thoughts and intentions secret

= synonym
= antonym
= related word

sphinx (Noun)
A creature with the head of a person and the body of an animal.
sphinx (Noun)
A person who keeps his/her thoughts and intentions secret.
sphinx (Noun)
A sphincter.
sphinx (Verb)
To decorate with sphinxes.
sphinx (Verb)
To adopt the posture of the Sphinx.
sphinx (Verb)
To be inscrutable, often through silence.
sphinx (Verb)
To make one guess at the unknowable.
sphinx (Verb)
To befuddle.
sphinx (Verb)
For the feminine to co-opt, dominate, or devour the masculine, especially from a paranoid fear of this happening.

sphinx (n.)
In Egyptian art, an image of granite or porphyry, having a human head, or the head of a ram or of a hawk, upon the wingless body of a lion.
sphinx (n.)
On Greek art and mythology, a she-monster, usually represented as having the winged body of a lion, and the face and breast of a young woman.
sphinx (n.)
Hence: A person of enigmatical character and purposes, especially in politics and diplomacy.
sphinx (n.)
Any one of numerous species of large moths of the family Sphingidae; -- called also hawk moth.
sphinx (n.)
The Guinea, or sphinx, baboon (Cynocephalus sphinx).

sphinx
sfingks, n. a monster of Greek mythology, with the head of a woman and the body of a lioness, that proposed riddles to travellers, and strangled those who could not solve them: an enigmatic or inscrutable person: a hawk-moth: the Guinea baboon. [Gr.,—sphinggein, to throttle.]

A sphinx is a mythological figure, which looks like a lion with a human head. It dates back to the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and its name comes from the Ancient Greek name for a "stranger". The spinx is also common in South and South-East Asia, and was popular in Europe from the times of the Renaissance.