Isis

[ahy-sis]

noun Egyptian Religion.

a goddess of fertility, the sister and wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, and usually represented as a woman with a cow's horns with the solar disk between them: later worshiped in the Greek and Roman empires.

Origin of Isis

< Latin < Greek Îsis < Egyptian 'st

ISIS

[ahy-sis]

noun

Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria): a radical Sunni Muslim organization whose aim is to restore an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the region encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, and southeastern Turkey.

Origin of ISIS

Arabic al-Sham, an ancient territory known in English as the Levant, an area on the E shores of the Mediterranean

Also called ISIL, IS

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

Examples from the Web for isis

Contemporary Examples of isis

But sources said that the evidence so far is pointing away from an ISIS connection.
U.S. Spies See Al Qaeda Fingerprints on Paris Massacre
Shane Harris, Nancy A. Youssef
January 8, 2015
“We quietly did,” Reed previously told The Daily Beast of removing ISIS.
‘Archer’ Creator Adam Reed Spills Season 6 Secrets, From Surreal Plotlines to Life Post-ISIS
Marlow Stern
January 8, 2015
“You are applying Western metrics to someone who is not using that metric against you,” referring to ISIS, Bolger said.
Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many People It’s Killed in the ISIS War
Nancy A. Youssef
January 7, 2015
But there is no consensus about what the attrition of ISIS looks like.
Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many People It’s Killed in the ISIS War
Nancy A. Youssef
January 7, 2015
Breaking the will of ISIS, the military argues, is not a statistic.
Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many People It’s Killed in the ISIS War
Nancy A. Youssef
January 7, 2015

Historical Examples of isis

Come, Clara; I want to explore the penetralia of this temple of Isis.'
Wilfrid Cumbermede
George MacDonald
The 'chants of Isis' (Laws), we might think, would have been barbarous in an Athenian ear.
Laws
Plato
The worship of Isis was really only an exalted type of moon worship.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930
Various
Isis bequeathed her veil of old To modern daughters of the Nile.
Enamels and Cameos and other Poems
Thophile Gautier
The religion of Isis did not gain a hold on the soul by its dogmatism.
The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
Franz Cumont

British Dictionary definitions for isis

Isis

noun

the local name for the River Thames at Oxford

Isis

noun

an ancient Egyptian fertility goddess, depicted as a woman with a cow's horns, between which was the disc of the sun; wife and sister of Osiris

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