sibyl

See also: Sibyl

English

Michelangelo's rendering of the Delphic sibyl

Etymology

(deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin Sibylla, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Ancient Greek Σίβυλλα (Síbulla).

Noun

sibyl (plural sibyls)

1. A pagan female oracle or prophetess, especially the Cumaean sibyl.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
     : Act III, Scene IV:

     A sibyl, that had number'd in the world

     The sun to course two hundred compasses,

     In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;

   • 1922 T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland: Epigraph (translated from 61 Petronius' The Satyricon: Chapter 8, Lines 80 -86)

     I used to read these tales in Homer when I was a lad. Then the Sibyl! I saw her at Cumae with my own eyes hanging in a jar; and when the boys cried to her, ‘Sibyl, what would you?' she'd answer, ‘I would die,'-- both of ‘em speaking Greek."

Translations

a pagan female oracle

• French: sibylle (fr) f
• German: Sibylle f
• Greek: Σίβυλλα (el) f (Sívylla)

  Ancient Greek: Σίβυλλα f (Síbulla)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: sibilla (it) f
• Latin: Sibylla f
• Russian: сиви́лла (ru) f (sivílla)
• Swedish: sibylla (sv) c

Anagrams

• Sybil