sphinx
verbEtymology From Sphinx, from Middle English Spynx, from Latin Sphinx, from Ancient Greek Σφίγξ (Sphínx), perhaps either from σφίγγω (sphíngō, “to squeeze, to strangle”) (whence also sphincter), of Pre-Greek origin, or from Egyptian Szp:p-A53-anx-n:x (šzp-ꜥnḫ, “divine image”, literally “living image”).
1
To decorate with sphinxes.
- a marble sphinxed chimney-piece
2
To adopt the posture of the Sphinx.
- A hot lion with a very bloated stomach … will adopt either a sphinxed or a squatting posture which takes some of the weight off its belly.
- Several animals maintained either a crouched … or a sphinxing posture (abdomen on the floor)
3
To be inscrutable, often through silence.
- The sphinxèd riddle of the Universe, Nature's unsolved enigma, who may prove?1900, Leigh Gordon Giltner, “Love and Death”, in The Path of Dreams: Poems, page 27:
- Then there are the folks trying to do a Garbo on us[…]Janet Gaynor, so they tell, is sphinxing it and has gone into a Retirement, with "Nothing to Say — Please Go Away" written on the doormat.1933 February, Gladys Hall, “The Hollywood Frivolities of 1932”, in Motion Picture, volume 45, page 29:
1 more example
- What with Fisher whole-hogging on one side, and K. of K. sphinxing on the other, Churchill had his work cut out to get any sort of agreement at all.1964, John Hargrave, The Suvla Bay Landing, page 22:
4
To behave in a manner characteristic of the Sphinx.
- Perhaps Nature is sphinxing us on purpose. Whatever her objects may be, perhaps she gets her work done better when she appeals to our gambling instincts. If you knew for certain exactly how your marriage was going to turn out[…]1933, Roycroft Junto Outlines, The Roycrofters, page 412:
- And then he summarizes his fears with a reference to that icon which[…]stood for the feminine threat to civilization: “Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: it is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.” Male fears of an engulfing femininity are here projected onto the metropolitan masses, who did indeed represent a threat to the rational bourgeois order.[…]We may want to relate Le Bon's social psychology of the masses back to modernism's own fears of being sphinxed.1986, Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism, page 53: