English

Alternative forms

• Sybil
• rare: Cybil, Cybill

Proper noun

Sibyl

1. A female given name.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act I, Scene II:

     Be she as foul as Florentius' love, / As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd / As Socrates' Xanthippe, or worse, / She moves me not.

2. Alternative letter-case form of sibyl

Usage notes

• Used as a name since the Middle Ages. Since the 19th century usually spelled Sybil.

Translations

Anagrams

• Sybil

English

Michelangelo's rendering of the Delphic sibyl

Noun

sibyl ‎(plural sibyls)

1. A pagan female oracle or prophetess, especially the Cumaean sibyl.
   • 1603, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello: Act III, Scene IV:

     A sibyl, that had number'd in the world

     The sun to course two hundred compasses,

     In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;

   • 1922 T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland: Epigraph (translated from 61 Petronius' The Satyricon: Chapter 8, Lines 80 -86)

     I used to read these tales in Homer when I was a lad. Then the Sibyl! I saw her at Cumae with my own eyes hanging in a jar; and when the boys cried to her, ‘Sibyl, what would you?' she'd answer, ‘I would die,'-- both of ‘em speaking Greek."

Translations

Anagrams

• Sybil