sibyl

noun

any of certain women of antiquity reputed to possess powers of prophecy or divination.

a female prophet or witch.

Origin:
1250–1300; < Greek Síbylla Sibylla; replacing Middle English Sibil < Medieval Latin Sibilla < Greek, as above

Synonyms
seer, prophetess, oracle, soothsayer.

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun

a female given name.

Also, Sib·ylle.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source

Link To sibyl

Relevant Questions

What Is Sibyl Sanderson?

What Is Sibyll?

What Is Sibyl Sanderson?

What Is Sibyll?

00:10

Sibyl is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Collins

World English Dictionary

sibyl (ˈsɪbɪl)

—n
1.	(in ancient Greece and Rome) any of a number of women believed to be oracles or prophetesses, one of the most famous being the sibyl of Cumae, who guided Aeneas through the underworld
2.	a witch, fortune-teller, or sorceress

[C13: ultimately from Greek Sibulla, of obscure origin]

sibylline

—*adj*

sibyllic

—*adj*

sibylic

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

sibyl

c.1300, from O.Fr. sibile, from L. Sibylla, from Gk. Sibylla, name for any of several prophetesses consulted by ancient Greeks and Romans, of uncertain origin. Said to be from Doric Siobolla, from Attic Theoboule "divine wish."

Example sentences

Sibyl suggests they go to the hospital, but when she attempts to call for an ambulance, she finds that the phone lines are dead.

They found in a compelling, camp combination of sibyl and dinosaur.

Want sibyl ad-free? Click here!

Related Words

sibylline

Bingen

Matching Quote

"The age of the world is great enough for our imaginations, even according to the Mosaic account, without borrowing any years from the geologist. From Adam and Eve at one leap sheer down to the deluge, and then through the ancient monarchies, through Babylon and Thebes, Brahma and Abraham, to Greece and the Argonauts; whence we might start again with Orpheus, and the Trojan war, the Pyramids and the Olympic games, and Homer and Athens, for our stages; and after a breathing space at the building of Rome, continue our journey down through Odin and Christ to—MAmerica. It is a wearisome while. And yet the lives of but sixty old women, such as live under the hill, say of a century each, strung together, are sufficient to reach over the whole ground. Taking hold of hands they would span the interval from Eve to my own mother. A respectable tea-party merely,—whose gossip would be Universal History. The fourth old woman from myself suckled Columbus,—the ninth was nurse to the Norman Conqueror,—the nineteenth was the Virgin Mary—the twenty-fourth was the Cumæan Sibyl,—the thirtieth was at the Trojan war and Helen her name,—the thirty-eighth was Queen Semiramis,—the sixtieth was Eve, the mother of mankind. So much for the
"Old woman that lives under the hill,
And if she's not gone she lives there still."
It will not take a very great-granddaughter of hers to be in at the death of Time."

-Henry David Thoreau

sibyl

sib·yl

Sib·yl