phoenix

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A mythical bird that burns itself to ashes and then rises again, born new from the ashes.

   In the legend, the phoenix rose from the ashes every five hundred years.

2. 2
   noun

   Something that comes back strongly after seeming to be destroyed.

   The city rose like a phoenix after the great fire.

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.

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