Myth & LegendGreek → English
Sphinx
/sfɪŋks/noun
A mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head, or a person who gives nothing away.
The Greek roots
Σφίγξ
Sphínx
the Strangler
Literally: “she who squeezes tight”
Follow a root:Σφίγξ1 word
The story of the word
Greeks connected the name to σφίγγειν, to bind or squeeze tight, because their Sphinx throttled travellers who failed her riddle outside Thebes. That verb also gave sphincter, so the monster and the muscle are relatives. The Egyptian statues were male, lion-bodied and riddle-free; they got the Greek name from Greek visitors, and the link between Σφίγξ and the verb may itself be a folk explanation of a borrowed word.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
sphinctersphinxlike
In a sentence
He sat through the whole negotiation like a sphinx and signed nothing.