phoenix
/ˈfiːnɪks/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.21 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A mythological bird, said to be the only one of its kind, which lives for 500 years and then dies by burning to ashes on a pyre of its own making, ignited by the sun. It then arises anew from the ashes.
noun
Anything that is reborn after apparently being destroyed.
noun
A mythological Chinese chimerical bird whose physical body symbolizes the six celestial bodies; a fenghuang.
noun
A geometer moth of species Eulithis prunata.
name
A mythical firebird; especially the sacred one from ancient Egyptian mythology.
Example Sentences
- "burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood"
- "Astronomers believe planets might form in this dead star's disk, like the mythical Phoenix rising up out of the ashes."
- "Lord Allerton was that modern phœnix, a young man, without a single objection."
- "Many of the legitimate nightclubs of today sprang like legalized phoenixes from the still-hot ashes of the speakeasies of prohibition days."
- "The national currency, the phoenix, which had been established by Kapodistrias, was renamed after an ancient Greek coin, the drachma."
- "He may not be a phœnix of cleverness in your sense; his profession is different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a little on his subjects."
Etymology
From Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek φοῖνιξ (phoînix), from Egyptian b-n:nw*w-G31 (bnw, “grey heron”). Doublet of Bennu. The grey heron was venerated at Heliopolis and associated in Egypt with the cyclical renewal of life because the bird rises in flight at dawn and migrates back every year in the flood season to inhabit the Nile waters.
Origin
- Source language: Old English
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
American small phoenix
bokkeveld phoenix
frosted phoenix
like a phoenix from the ashes
northwestern phoenix moth
phoenix aeolid
phoenix barb
phoenix billbug