sphinx

6 definitions • 13 examples

in ancient stories, an imaginary creature with a lion's body and a person's or animal's head, and, in Greek stories, usually with wings:

These lavishly illustrated books described all the known animals as well as mystical creatures, such as the sphinx, the griffin, and the chimera.

Greek and Egyptian sphinxes both combine animal and human traits, but they are not exactly the same.

Sphinxes were guardian deities in Egyptian mythology.

a statue of a sphinx:

The museum has everything from sphinxes and scarabs to coffins and mummified cats.

Ram-headed sphinxes flanked the entrance to the High Priest's temple.

He lay on his stomach like a sphynx, with his elbows and forearms flat on the ground and his head and shoulders raised.

a large stone statue with a lion's body and a man's head, that stands in the desert near Cairo in Egypt:

We also went to Cairo and saw the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

The Great Sphinx was carved out of limestone 4500 years ago.

There will be an optional excursion to visit Giza's Pyramids and the Great Sphinx.

in ancient Greek stories, a creature at Thebes with the body of a lion, the head and breasts of a woman, and wings. She asked people who passed by a riddle (= a difficult question) and if they could not answer correctly, she killed them:

the Sphinx of Thebes

Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx: what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?

a person who is mysterious and whose face and expressions do not show what they are thinking:

The actor plays him as a sphinx, with blank eyes and a smile that has no meaning.

On screen she was depicted as a sphynx, an unknowable enigma with no friends or family, and no sense of humour.

an ancient, imaginary creature with a lion’s body and a human head