chryselephantine
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of chryselephantine
1820–30; < Greek chrȳselephántinos, equivalent to chrȳs- chrys- + elephántinos ( elephant-, stem of eléphās elephant, ivory + -inos -ine 1
Explanation
Use chryselephantine to describe ancient Greek sculpture that's made of ivory and gold. In the 6th century, chryselephantine figures commonly adorned the insides of temples, depicting gods and goddesses. These sculptures, built on wooden frames, used ivory for the deities' bodies and faces, and sheets of hammered gold to represent their hair, clothing, and armor. Chryselephantine is derived from Greek roots, khrysos, "gold, " and elephans, which means both "elephant" and "ivory."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is ironic that the best evidence we have of what Phidias' lost chryselephantine statue of Athena in the Parthenon looked like should be preserved on a Scythian woman's pendant from the 4th century B.C.
From Time Magazine Archive
Actress West plays her heroine with an eloquent and minatory calm, which contrasts well with the chryselephantine magnificence of her appearance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Next it reached the hammered bronze image, passed through the archaic marbles, and culminated in the finer marbles and the chryselephantine statues of Zeus and Athena.
From Myth, Ritual and Religion — Volume 1 by Andrew Lang
We think a statue vast, colossal, of magnificent dimensions, if it be as much as ten or twenty feet high—as Chantrey's statue of Pitt, or Phidias's chryselephantine statue of Jupiter.
From Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson
In certain forms of combination with gold, it gave origin to the art of chryselephantine sculpture, so called from the Greek primitives, gold and ivory.
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 421 Volume 17, New Series, January 24, 1852 by William Chambers
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.
