sylph

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in the occult system of Paracelsus and later literature, an elemental spirit of the air, usually invisible and often represented as female

   In the mock-epic poem, each sylph guards a lady's dress.

2. 2
   noun

   literary: a slender, graceful woman or girl

   The dancer seemed a sylph as she crossed the stage.

3. 3
   noun

   any of several hummingbirds of the genus Aglaiocercus, whose males have long forked tails

   A violet-tailed sylph hovered beside the flowering tree.

From New Latin sylphes, coined by Paracelsus in the sixteenth century for elemental spirits of the air. Its further origin is uncertain; it has been conjecturally linked with Latin sylvestris, of the woods, and nympha, nymph. The graceful-woman and hummingbird senses extend the spirit's lightness.

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