different between sylph vs sylphlike

English

Etymology

First attested in 1657. From New Latin sylphes, coined by Paracelsus in the 16th century. The coinage may derive from Latin sylvestris (“of the woods”) and nympha (“nymph”). Related to sylvan.

More at Wikipedia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?lf/
• Rhymes: -?lf

Noun

sylph (plural sylphs)

1. (mythology) An invisible being of the air.

   Synonym: sylphid

2. The elemental being of air, usually female.
3. (by extension) A slender woman or girl, usually graceful and sometimes with the implication of sublime station over everyday people.
   • 1811, Mary Bruton, Self-Control (novel):

4. (ornithology) Any of the mainly dark green and blue hummingbirds (genus Aglaiocercus), the male of which has a long forked tail.

Related terms

• sylvan (see for more terms)
• savage
• Silvanus

Translations

Further reading

• sylph on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, ?ISBN

English

Etymology

sylph +? -like

Adjective

sylphlike (comparative more sylphlike, superlative most sylphlike)

1. Resembling (that of) a sylph; slender and graceful.
   • 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley, St. Irvyne, Chapter IV,^[1]

     Soon advancing through the hall, he saw the sylphlike figure of the lovely Olympia […]

   • 1821, Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, Act IV, lines 57-61,^[2]

     […] the thin robes

     Floating like light clouds ’twixt our gaze and heaven;

     The many-twinkling feet so small and sylphlike,

     Suggesting the more secret symmetry

     Of the fair forms which terminate so well—

   • 1988, Edmund White, The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, 1994, Chapter Four,

     Once Tex had said to me, very sister-to-sister, “Aren’t we mad, we gay boys, starving ourselves to sylphlike fragility, all so we can attract a straight cop with a beer belly?”

   • 2001, “Emily Eakin, The Way We Live Now: 12-02-01: Phenomenon; Tiny Dancers,” The New York Times, 2 December, 2001,^[3]

     Here we see a few of the 48 diminutive hopefuls who showed up that day, awaiting their turn to impress the judges with a high instep or a particularly sylphlike extension.