Sibyl
/ˈsɪbəl/noun
A woman in the ancient world who prophesied under divine possession, and a given name taken from her.
The Greek roots
Literally: “prophetess”
The story of the word
A sibyl spoke unasked, unlike an oracle you paid and queried, and the Sibyl of Cumae was the most feared of them. Where Greek got the word is genuinely unsettled: no convincing Greek derivation exists, and a borrowing from Italy or Asia Minor is often proposed. Rome kept her Sibylline Books under guard and opened them only in emergencies, and medieval painters seated sibyls alongside the Hebrew prophets, which is how a pagan seer's title ended up on English baptismal records.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
In a sentence
Michelangelo gave five sibyls a place on the Sistine ceiling.
Her great-aunt Sibyl had the name and, the family claimed, some of the gift.