chryselephantine

[kris-el-uh-fan-tin, -tahyn]

adjective

made of or overlaid with gold and ivory, as certain objects made in ancient Greece.

Origin of chryselephantine

1820–30; < Greek chrȳselephántinos, equivalent to chrȳs- chrys- + elephántinos (elephant-, stem of eléphās elephant, ivory + -inos -ine¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for chryselephantine

Historical Examples of chryselephantine

Their hair is short and curls at the back of their heads like the hair of the chryselephantine Hermes.
Hymen
Hilda Doolittle
The great statue of Athene by Phidias was of this "Chryselephantine" work.
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
F. W. Farrar
The chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia was his work.
The Works of Lucian of Samosata, v. 4
Lucian of Samosata
The cella or naos was built to enshrine the chryselephantine statue of Athena by Pheidias.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 4
Various
Chryselephantine, kris-el-e-fan′tin, adj. noting the art of making statues jointly of gold and ivory.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D)
Various

British Dictionary definitions for chryselephantine

chryselephantine

adjective

(of ancient Greek statues) made of or overlaid with gold and ivory

Word Origin for chryselephantine

C19: from Greek khruselephantinos, from khrusos gold + elephas ivory; see elephant

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for chryselephantine

adj.

"overlaid with gold and ivory," 1816, probably via German, from Latinized form of Greek khryselephantinos, from khrysos "gold" (see chrysalis) + elephantinos "made of ivory," from elephans (genitive elephantos) "elephant; ivory" (see elephant).