▪ I. phœnix1, phenix
(ˈfiːnɪks)
Forms: 1, 4–6 fenix, 4–6 fenyx, 5 phenes, 6 phenex, -yx, fenyce, 6– phœnix, phenix (7 phænix).
[OE. and OF. fenix, a. med.L. phēnix, L. phœnix, a. Gr. ϕοῖνιξ the mythical bird, identical with ϕοῖνιξ Phœnician, purple-red, crimson: see Note below. In OF. also fenis, fenisces; Sp. fenix, It. fenice; Du. feniks, MLG. fenix, Ger. phönix, Da., Sw. fönix. The Eng. spelling was in 16th c. assimilated to the L. (fenyce was after It.).]
1. A mythical bird, of gorgeous plumage, fabled to be the only one of its kind, and to live five or six hundred years in the Arabian desert, after which it burnt itself to ashes on a funeral pile of aromatic twigs ignited by the sun and fanned by its own wings, but only to emerge from its ashes with renewed youth, to live through another cycle of years.
(Variations of the myth were that the phœnix burnt itself on the altar of the temple at Heliopolis: and that a worm emerged from the ashes and became the young phœnix. See also phœnix2.)
| a 900 Phœnix 86 in Exeter Bk., Ðone wudu weardaþ wundrum fæᵹer fuᵹel feþrum se is fenix haten. c 1000 ælfric Gram. ix. (Z.) 70 Hic Fenix (swa hatte an fuᵹel on arabiscre ðeode, se leofað fif hund ᵹeara and æfter deaðe eft arist ᵹeedcucod). 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xii. xv. (Bodl. MS.), Þis brid Fenix is a brid wiþoute make and leueþ þre hundred oþer fyue hundred yere. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) vii. 25 A fewle þat men calles Fenix; and þer es bot ane..þis fewle liffes fyue hundreth ȝere; and at þe fyue hundreth ȝere end he commes to þe forsaid temple and apon þe awter he brynnes him self all to powder. 14.. Nominale in Wr.-Wülcker 702/17 Hic phenix, a phenes. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (1531) 202 b, There is one byrde called a Fenyce, & but onely one of that kynde in the worlde. 1555 Eden Decades 216 The Phenyx the which I knowe no man that euer hath seene. 1593 Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, i. iv. 35 My ashes, as the Phœnix, may bring forth A Bird, that will reuenge vpon you all. 1601 Holland Pliny xiii. iv. I. 387 The bird Phœnix, which is supposed to haue taken that name of this Date tree (called in Greeke ϕοῖνιξ) for it was assured to me, that the said bird died with that tree, and reuiued of it selfe as the tree sprung againe. 1610 Shakes. Temp. iii. iii. 23 A liuing Drolerie: now I will beleeue That..in Arabia There is one Tree, the Phœnix throne, one Phœnix At this houre reigning there. 1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Introd., Birds..the fabulous are, the gryphin, harpie,..phœnix, cinnamologus. a 1700 Dryden Ovid's Metam. xv. 527 All these receive their Birth from other Things; But from himself the Phœnix only springs: Self-born, begotten by the Parent Flame In which he burn'd, Another and the Same. 1809 Byron Bards & Rev. 961 And glory, like the phœnix 'midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. 1882 Farrar Early Chr. I. 103 He [Clemens Romanus] illustrates [the] possiblity [of the Resurrection] by natural analogies, especially by the existence and history of the Phœnix! 1885 Bible (R.V.) Job xxix. 18 Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand [margin, Or, the phœnix]. |
2. transf. and
fig. a. A person (or thing) of unique excellence or of matchless beauty; a paragon.
| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. A. 430 Now for synglerte o hyr dousour We calle hyr fenyx of Arraby. c 1369 Chaucer Dethe Blaunche 982 Trewly she was to myn eye, The Soleyn Fenix of Arabye. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. V 33 b, This Prince [Henry V] was almost the Arabicall Phenix. 1549 Latimer 1st Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 42 For goddes loue, let not him be a Phenix, let him not be alone. 1603 Knolles Hist. Turks (1621) Ded., Her late sacred Majestie,..the rare Phœnix of her sex, who now resteth in glorie. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. vi. iii. 128 The Phœnix of Astronomy Ticho-Braghe. 1775 Wesley Wks. (1872) IV. 50 He seems to think himself a mere Phenix. 1838–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. I. i. iii. §96. 209 Picus of Mirandola..so justly called the phœnix of his age. |
b. That which rises from the ashes of its predecessor.
| 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, iv. vii. 93 From their ashes shal be reard A Phœnix that shall make all France affear'd. 1632 Heywood 1st Pt. Iron Age i. Ep. Ded., Out of her ashes hath risen two the rarest Phœnixes in Europe, namely London and Rome. 1867 H. Macmillan Bible Teach. xvi. (1870) 329 The phœnix of new institutions can only arise out of the conflagration and ashes of the old. |
3. The figure of the phœnix in Heraldry, or as an ornament.
Heraldically represented as rising in the midst of flames.
| c 1420 Lydg. Assembly of Gods 810 A fenyx on hys helme stood. So forthe gan he fare. 1887 Pall Mall G. 24 Oct. 13/2 The button is surrounded by seven gold phœnixes, of which each is inlaid with seven large and twenty-one small pearls and a cat's eye. |
4. Astr. One of the southern constellations.
| 1674 Moxon Tutor Astron. i. iii. §10 (ed. 3) 19 Twelve Constellations..added by Frederico Houtmanno..who..named them as follows, 1 The Crane, 2 The Phenix, 3 The Indian [etc.]. 1774 M. Mackenzie Maritime Surv. i. v. 51 When it appears in a horizontal Line with the Foot of the Cross, or the Head of the Phenix. 1868 Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 335. |
5. attrib. and
Comb.: (
a) simple
attrib. (of the phœnix), as
phœnix life,
phœnix nest,
phœnix plume,
phœnix pride,
phœnix riddle,
phœnix wing; also passing into
adj. (
= phœnix-like; as of a phœnix), as
phœnix-birth,
phœnix-life,
phœnix-pyre,
phœnix-resurrection,
phœnix-tinder; (
b) appositive (that is a phœnix: sense 2) passing into
adj. (
= phœnix-like), as
phœnix bride,
phœnix family,
phœnix-fuel,
phœnix grace,
phœnix mercy,
phœnix-moon,
phœnix opinion,
phœnix parson,
phœnix queen,
phœnix sect,
phœnix she,
phœnix-world; (
c) parasynthetic, as
phœnix-feathered adj.; also
phœnix-like a. and adv., like or after the manner of a phœnix;
† phœnix-man, a fireman in the employ of the old Phœnix Insurance Office (founded 1681: see
quot. 1700, also Phillips,
ed. Kersey 1706).
| 1946 R. Campbell Talking Bronco 69 The proud Alcazar caught the fire Which gave that splendour *phoenix-birth. 1977 Listener 10 Nov. 617/1 His radio ballads, combining actuality voices, music and sound effects were a phoenix birth at a dark hour. |
| 1814 Mrs. J. West Alicia de Lacy II. 289 The Earl..was too austere, cold, and misanthropic to be a meet companion for his *Phœnix bride. |
| 1805 T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. (1806) II. 141 That *phœnix family the Rosevilles—alias the Dickenses. |
| 1596 C. Fitzgeffrey Sir F. Drake (1881) 21 Into whose soule sweete Sidney did infuse The essence of his *Phœnix-feather'd Muse. |
| 1936 R. Campbell Mithraic Emblems 50 True *phoenix-fuel whom no burning mars. |
| 1671 J. Flavel Fount. of Life ii. 32 Faith is the *Phenix-Grace, as Christ is the Phenix-Mercy. |
| a 1957 R. Campbell tr. Quevedo's On Lisi's Golden Hair in Coll. Poems (1960) III. 83 Out of their ash to fan new *phoenix-lives. |
| 1612 Two Noble K. i. iii, *Phenix like They dide in perfume. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 544 Abraham saw..a Phœnix-like Resurrection of his Son, as possible with God. 1865 H. Phillips Amer. Paper Curr. II. 11 When from the ruins of a State, Phœnix-like, a new one arises. |
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, *Phenix-men, the same as Fire-drakes. [Fire-drakes, men with a Phenix for their Badge, in Livery, and Pay from the Insurance-Office, to extinguish Fires.] |
| 1934 L. B. Lyon White Hare 29 The *phoenix moon with molten breast. |
| 1594 Nashe Unfort. Trav. Wks. (Grosart) V. 62 Her high exalted sunne beames haue set the *phenix neast of my breast on fire. |
| 1630 R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 113 The Pope himselfe shall gratifie him with a *Phenix plume. |
| 1930 R. Campbell Adamastor 78 And now from the wet earth reborn, All Africa his *phoenix pyre. |
| 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. (1882) 8 Such a vertuous Ladie and *Phenix Queene. |
| 1963 L. Trilling in N. Frye Romanticism Reconsidered 88 When he [sc. Keats] is ‘consumed in the fire’, they will contrive his *Phoenix-resurrection. |
| a 1631 Donne Canonization in Poems (1633) 203 The *Phoenix ridle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. |
| a 1720 Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.) Wks. (1729) 132 That *Phenix-She deserves to be beloved. |
| 1939 R. Campbell Flowering Rifle iii. 74 So their black chaos is but welcome fuel And *phoenix-tinder to this fierce renewal. |
| 1657 Evelyn Diary 17 Sept., Habits of curiously-colour'd and wrought feathers, one from the *phœnix wing as tradition goes. |
| 1944 W. Temple Let. 22 Feb. (1963) 147 The reforms necessary for the arising of that brave new *phoenix-world on which we have set our hearts. |
Hence
phœnixity nonce-wd., the quality of being a phœnix or unique.
| 1886 G. B. Shaw Cashel Byron (1889) 268 She, poor girl! cannot appreciate even her own phœnixity. |
[
Note. The relation of
Phœnix to other senses of
Gr. ϕοῖνιξ is obscure: see note to
Phœnician. It could hardly be ‘the Phœnician bird’, since it was at Heliopolis in Egypt, where the cult of the phœnix (in
Egypt. bennu) was coeval with the city, that Herodotus learned the legend about it. It might
perh. be ‘the red’, with reference to the prevailing colour of its body (τὰ µὲν χρυσόκοµα τῶν πτερῶν, τὰ δὲ ἐρυθρὰ ἐς τὰ µάλιστα, Herod. ii. 73), or, as some think, as an emblem of the sun in its perpetual setting and rising again. See Roscher
Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie,
s.v.]
▪ II. ‖ phœnix2 Bot. (
ˈfiːnɪks)
[mod.L. (Linnæus), a. Gr. ϕοῖνιξ the date palm, a date: see Phœnician. Various speculations connecting the date-tree with the mythical bird,
phœnix1, were current from the time of Pliny or earlier: see
quots. here, also 1601 in
phœnix1 1, and the Latin
Carmen de Phœnice, attributed to Lactantius (
a 325). Some have supposed a much earlier connexion: the Egyptian name of the phœnix was
bennu, that of the date (fruit and tree)
benr or
benra, whence Coptic
benne. But Egyptologers hold the two words to be unconnected. Some would explain ϕοῖνιξ the date, as ‘the red fruit’.]
The name of a genus of palms, distinguished by their pinnate leaves; the most important species is
P. dactylifera, the Date Palm.
| [a 900 Phœnix 174 in Exeter Bk., Beam..þone hatað men fenix on foldan of þæs fuᵹles noman. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. (Bodl. MS.) xvii. cxvi, For he [palma] dureþ & is grene..longe tyme, þerfore bi liknes of þe brid Fenix þat lyueþ longe tyme þere, hatte Fenix amonge þe Grees. Ibid. (1495) 679 In the south countree is a manere palme that is alone in that kynde: and none other spryngeth ne comyth therof: but whan this palme is so olde that it faylyth all for aege: thenne ofte it quyknyth and spryngyth ayen of itself; therfore men trowe that Fenix that is a byrde of Arabia hath the name of this palme of Arabia, for he dieth and quiketh efte as the foreseide palme dothe, as Plinius seith. 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v., Hence the Phœnicians gave the name phœnix to the palm-tree, by reason when burnt down to the very root, it rises again fairer than ever.] 1895 Westm. Gaz. 18 Apr. 1/3 To sit under the waving feathers of the date and phœnix palms. |