Sphinx

• n. 斯芬克斯（带翼的狮身女怪，传说常叫过路行人猜谜，猜不出者即遭噬食）；狮身人面像；谜一样的人

来自拉丁语 Sphinx,来自希腊语 Sphinks,古希腊神话传说中的狮身人面长翼女妖，每当过路 人经过即让其猜谜，猜不中者将就其吃掉，这个著名的谜语就是“什么动物早晨用四条腿走 路，中午用两条腿走路，晚上用三条腿走路”，后古希腊英雄 Oedipus 猜中了谜底，斯芬克 斯羞愧万分，跳崖而死。对应于或原型来自埃及神话中的男狮身人面像，法老的守护神。其 词源可能来自希腊语 sphingein,绑，挤，勒，因狮子用牙齿咬住猎物后勒紧使猎物窒息而死， 或俗化自埃及语 Szp-'nx(sheap-ankh),神圣的雕像。

sphinx

sphinx: [16] The original Sphinx was a monster, half woman and half lion, which terrorized the country around Thebes in ancient Greece. According to legend, it would waylay travellers and ask them a riddle; and if they could not solve it, it killed them. One of its favoured methods was strangulation, and its name supposedly means ‘the strangler’ – as if it were derived from Greek sphíggein ‘bind tight’ (source of English sphincter [16]).

However, this account of its name sounds as mythological as the account of its existence, and a more likely explanation is perhaps that the word was derived from the name of Mount Phikion, not far from ancient Thebes. One of the first yachts to carry a spinnaker sail, in the mid-1860s, was the Sphinx, and it has been conjectured that its name (or rather a mispronunciation /spingks/) formed the basis of the term spinnaker [19], perhaps as a partial blend with spanker, the name of another type of sail.
=> spinnaker

sphinx (n.)

monster of Greek mythology having a lion's (winged) body and a woman's head; she waylaid travelers around Thebes and devoured those who could not answer her questions; Oedipus solved the riddle and the Sphinx killed herself. In English from early 15c., from Latin Sphinx, from Greek Sphinx, said to mean literally" the strangler," a back-formation from sphingein "to squeeze, bind" (see sphincter).

There also was an Egyptian form (usually male and wingless); in reference to this it is attested in English from 1570s; specific reference to the colossal stone one near the pyramids as Giza is attested from 1610s. Transferred sense of "person or thing of mysterious nature" is from c. 1600. The proper plural would be sphinges. As adjectives in English, sphingal, sphingian, sphingine, sphinxian, sphinxine, and sphinx-like all have been tried.

1. We set off to see the Pyramids and Sphinx.

我们出发去看金字塔和狮身人面像。

来自柯林斯例句

2. The Great Pyramids and the Sphinx are nearby.

雄伟的金字塔和狮身人面像就在附近.

来自《简明英汉词典》

3. I. Comparisons to a Living Creature ( i . e . , the Sphinx riddle )

1.比作某种生物 ( 如斯芬克司谜 )

来自英汉非文学 - 民俗

4. It suited him to play the sphinx.

让他演神秘莫测的人很合适。

来自辞典例句

5. She was the picture of a serene and exquisite but impenetrable sphinx.

她看上去就象一尊非常安详精致、但又高深莫测的狮身人面像.

来自辞典例句