What is "sylph"

Sylph \Sylph\, n. [F. sylphe, m., fr. Gr. ? a kind of grub, beetle, or moth; -- so called by Paracelsus.]

1. An imaginary being inhabiting the air; a fairy.

2. Fig.: A slender, graceful woman.

3. (Zo["o]l.) Any one of several species of very brilliant South American humming birds, having a very long and deeply-forked tail; as, the blue-tailed sylph ( Cynanthus cyanurus).

1650s, "air-spirit," from Modern Latin sylphes (plural), coined 16c. by Paracelsus (1493-1541), originally referring to any race of spirits inhabiting the air, described as being mortal but lacking a soul. Paracelsus' word seems to be an arbitrary coinage, but perhaps it holds a suggestion of Latin silva and Greek nymph, or Greek silphe "a kind of beetle," but French etymologists propose a Gaulish origin. The Century Dictionary comments that, "to occultists and quacks like Paracelsus words spelled with -y- look more Greek and convincing." The meaning "graceful girl" first recorded 1838, on the notion of "slender figure and light, airy movement" [OED].

n. 1 (context mythology English) An invisible being of the air 2 The elemental being of air, usually female. 3 A slender woman or girl, usually graceful and sometimes with the implication of sublime station over everyday people. 4 A mainly dark green and blue hummingbird, the male of which has a long forked tail.

1. n. a slender graceful young woman

2. an elemental being believed to inhabit the air

Sylph (also called sylphid) is a mythological spirit of the air. The term originates in the 16th century works of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air.

Since the term sylph itself originates with Paracelsus, there is relatively little pre-Paracelsian legend and mythology that can be confidently associated with it, but a significant number of subsequent literary and occult works have been inspired by the idea. Robert Alfred Vaughan noted that "the wild but poetical fantasies" of Paracelsus had probably exercised a larger influence over his age and the subsequent one than is generally supposed, particularly on the Rosicrucians, but that through the 18th century they had become reduced to "machinery for the playwright" and "opera figurantes with wings of gauze and spangles."

Sylph may refer to:

• Sylph, a mythological creature in western tradition
• La Sylphide, a ballet
• The hummingbird genus Aglaiocercus which includes:
  • Long-tailed sylph
  • Violet-tailed sylph
  • Venezuelan sylph
• The skipper butterfly genus Metisella which are called sylphs
• Sylph, an opium clipper ship launched at Calcutta in 1831, based in Hong Kong, and lost in 1849
• Sylph, a member of the fictional team of superheroes the Elementals
• Sylph Comics, a shōjo manga publishing label under ASCII Media Works
  • Sylph (magazine), a shōjo manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works
• The Sylph, a novel by 'A Young Lady', really Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, written in 1778
• Sylph (Dungeons & Dragons)

is a Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) and is sold monthly. The magazine was originally published on December 9, 2006 as a special edition version of MediaWorks' now-defunct Dengeki Comic Gao! under the title as a quarterly publication. On March 21, 2008, with the release of the sixth volume, the magazine was transferred over as a special edition version of ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh. On May 22, 2008, the magazine became independent of Dengeki Daioh and was published as volume one of Sylph as the July 2008 issue as a bimonthly publication. On May 22, 2010, the magazine started to be published monthly. Sylph is one of the few magazines originally published by MediaWorks not under the Dengeki naming line, such as with Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, the first of which being Active Japan in 1995 which has been discontinued since 1998.

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, a sylph is an outsider that shares many similarities to fey creatures.