I. ˈfēniks, -nēks noun
( -es )
Etymology: Middle English fenix, from Old English, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix phoenix, Phoenician, date palm, purple, crimson — more at phoenician
1. : a legendary bird represented by the ancient Egyptians as living five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, being consumed in fire by its own act, and rising in youthful freshness from its own ashes and often regarded as an emblem of immortality or of the resurrection
2. : a person or thing likened to the phoenix: as
a. : a paragon of excellence or beauty
concerned at seeing the phoenix of modern culture throw herself away on a man unworthy of her — G.B.Shaw
b. : one that experiences a restoration, renewal, or seeming rebirth after ruin or destruction
natural law is the phoenix of legal speculation; however often it is criticized to extinction, it rises again, an old spirit in a new and vigorous body — Glenn Negley
3. : a representation of the phoenix (as in heraldry)
4. : fêng huang
II. noun
Usage: capitalized
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek phoinix date palm
: a large genus of pinnate-leaved palms distributed throughout tropical Asia and Africa and having dioecious flowers and an ovary with three carpels only one of which matures — see date I
III. adjective
Usage: usually capitalized
Etymology: from Phoenix, Ariz.
: of or from Phoenix, the capital of Arizona
a Phoenix motel
: of the kind or style prevalent in Phoenix