phoenix

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a legendary Arabian bird said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix

   according to most versions only one phoenix lived at a time and it renewed itself every 500 years

2. 2
   noun

   A mythological bird, said to be the only one of its kind, which lives for 500 years and then dies by burning to ashes on a pyre of its own making, ignited by the sun. It then arises anew from the ashes.

   burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood

3. 3
   noun

   Anything that is reborn after apparently being destroyed.

   Astronomers believe planets might form in this dead star's disk, like the mythical Phoenix rising up out of the ashes.

4. 4
   noun

   A Greek silver coin used briefly from 1828 to 1832, divided into 100 lepta.

   The national currency, the phoenix, which had been established by Kapodistrias, was renamed after an ancient Greek coin, the drachma.

5. 5
   noun

   A marvelous person or thing.

   He may not be a phœnix of cleverness in your sense; his profession is different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a little on his subjects.

6. 6
   verb

   To transfer assets from one company to another to dodge liability

   Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association CEO John Winter said phoenixing has been "endemic" for decades.

7. 7
   noun

   a large monocotyledonous genus of pinnate-leaved palms found in Asia and Africa

8. 8
   noun

   A mythological Chinese chimerical bird whose physical body symbolizes the six celestial bodies; a fenghuang.

Etymology

From Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek φοῖνιξ (phoînix), from Egyptian b-n:nw*w-G31 (boinu, “grey heron”). Doublet of Bennu. The grey heron was venerated at Heliopolis and associated in Egypt with the cyclical renewal of life because the bird rises in flight at dawn and migrates back every year in the flood season to inhabit the Nile waters.