any of certain women of antiquity reputed to possess powers of prophecy or divination.
a female prophet or witch.
(in ancient Greece and Rome) any of a number of women believed to be oracles or prophetesses, one of the most famous being the sibyl of Cumae, who guided Aeneas through the underworld
a witch, fortune-teller, or sorceress
1250–1300; < Greek Síbylla Sibylla; replacing Middle English Sibil < Medieval Latin Sibilla < Greek, as above
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Sherman has been the sibyl of such proliferating confusions, toying with representation’s integrity and the boundaries of identity for more than four decades.
From New York Times • Jan. 24, 2024
It was deemed a line straight to God — staggering, the voice of an enchantress, a sibyl, a siren.
From Washington Post • May 11, 2021
Since the mid-1980s, Ms. Cook has reigned as a kind of sibyl channeling the wisdom and humanity of the American songbook, particularly as embodied in the work of Stephen Sondheim.
From New York Times • Jun. 22, 2016
He shows Emperor Octavian asking the Tiburtine sibyl whether any king as great as he would ever live; the sibyl replies by showing the Emperor a vision of the Christ Child.
From Time Magazine Archive
People were coming from as far away as Barahona to talk “through” this ebony black sibyl with the Mirabal sisters.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
