From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsphinxsphinx, Sphinx /sfɪŋks/ noun [countable] RMan ancient Egyptian image of a lion with a human head, lying down
Examples from the Corpus
sphinx• Behind them, the huge ugly building crouched like a sphinx, purring through iron tonsils.• Phalle made a sphinx, which also served as her home over the several years of work on the project.• Mrs Nina Pender was less a pseud than a sphinx.• Luxor, built in the shape of a pyramid, complete with a sphinx out front.• Or a monstrous mysterious sphinx, aloof from all that lives.• She sat in the sphinx position, with her eyes closed.• His sometimes enigmatic expression and behaviour were likened to that of the sphinx in cartoonists' caricatures.• I was surprised, therefore, to find three sphinx caterpillars still feeding on the ash sapling next to the cabin.Sphinx, thethe SphinxSphinx, the 1 the Great Sphinx a large, very ancient sphinx which is close to the Pyramids of El Giza in Egypt and is visited by many tourists2 in Greek mythology, a creature with the head of a woman and the body of a lion. She lay outside Thebes and killed people who could not answer her riddle (=very difficult question). Oedipus answered the riddle, and the Sphinx killed herself. 