- A slim, graceful woman or girl.
- In the occult philosophy of Paracelsus, a being that has air as its element.
[New Latin sylpha, perhaps blend of Latin sylvestris, of the forest (from silva, sylva, forest) and Latin nympha, nymph; see nymph.]
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[New Latin sylpha, perhaps blend of Latin sylvestris, of the forest (from silva, sylva, forest) and Latin nympha, nymph; see nymph.]
n.
An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization. Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, like fowls of the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if they had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the chicks having ever been seen.
Sylph is a mythological creature in the Western tradition. The term originates in Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air. There is no substantial mythos associated with them.
As alchemy in the West derived from Paracelsus, alchemists and related movements, such as Rosicrucianism, continued to speak of sylphs in their hermetic literature.
The first mainstream western discussion of sylphs comes with Alexander Pope. In
Rape of the Lock, Pope satirizes
French Rosicrucian and alchemical writings when he invents a theory to explain the
sylph. In a parody of heroic poetry and the "dark" and "mysterious" literature of pseudo-science, and in particular the sometimes
esoterically Classical heroic poetry of the 18th century in England and France, Pope pretends to have a new alchemy, in which the sylph is the mystically, chemically condensed
humors of peevish women. In Pope's poem, women who are full of spleen and vanity turn into sylphs when they die because their spirits are too full of dark vapors to ascend to
the skies. Belinda, the heroine of Pope's poem, is attended by a small army of sylphs, who foster her vanity and guard her
beauty. This is a parody of Paracelsus, inasmuch as Pope imitates the earnest pseudo-science of
alchemy to explain the seriousness with which vain women approach the dressing room. In a slight
parody of the divine battle in John Milton's Paradise
Lost, when the Baron of the poem attempts to cut a lock of Belinda's hair, the sylphs interpose their airy bodies between
the blades of the scissors (to no effect whatever). The chief sylph in "The Rape of the Lock" has the same name as
Prospero's servant in
Because of their association with the ballet La Sylphide, where sylphs are identified with fairies and the medieval legends of fairyland, as well as a confusion with other "airy spirits" (e.g. in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), a slender girl may be referred to as a "sylph".
"Sylph" has passed into general language as a term for minor spirits, elementals, or faeries of the air. Fantasy authors will sometimes employ sylphs in their fiction.[1]
2. ^Sylphs [2]
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - sylfe, sylfide, luftånd
Nederlands (Dutch)
luchtgeest, gracieuze vrouw
Français (French)
n. - sylphide
Deutsch (German)
n. - Luftgeist, schlankes, zierliches Mädchen, (zo.) ein Kolibri
Italiano (Italian)
silfide, colibrì
Português (Portuguese)
n. - silfo (m)
Русский (Russian)
грациозная, стройная девушка, сильфида, сильф
Español (Spanish)
n. - espíritu del aire, sílfide, silfo
中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
空气精灵, 身材苗条的女人
中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 空氣精靈, 身材苗條的女人
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 공기의 요정, 가냘프고 아름다운 소녀, 벌새의 일종
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) السلف : كان خرافي , فتاة هيفاء رشيقه
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - עלמה דקת-גו, יעלת-חן, סוג יונק-דבש (ציפור), רוח רפאים של האוויר, סילפה
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![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more | |
![]() | Devil's Dictionary. Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911 Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sylph". Read more | |
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