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• Isis
  Isis

  noun

  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.
• ISIS
  ISIS

  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.

Isis

¹ American  

[ahy-sis] / ˈaɪ sɪs /

noun

Egyptian Religion.

1. 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.

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ISIS ² American  

[ahy-sis] / ˈaɪ sɪs /

noun

1. 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.

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Isis ¹ British  

/ ˈaɪsɪs /

noun

1. the local name for the River Thames at Oxford

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Isis ² British  

/ ˈaɪsɪs /

noun

1. 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

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Etymology

Origin of Isis¹

< Latin < Greek Îsis < Egyptian 'st

Origin of ISIS²

First recorded in 2010–15; from Arabic al-Sham, an ancient territory known in English as the Levant, an area on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Isis ISIS

He broke ties with al Qaeda in 2016 and later fought against Isis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 20, 2025

Isis symbolizes healing and maternal love and was worshiped from England to Afghanistan during the time of the Roman Empire.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2025

Carbona remade BioLife into AveXis: Av for adeno-associated virus serotype 9, the engine of Kaspar’s drug; ve for vector; X for the DNA helix; and Is for Isis, the goddess of children, nature and magic.

From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2025

BBC News spent two days outside London's HMP Belmarsh and HMP Isis speaking to people visiting and others being released to gauge how gangs in jails are operating.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2024

Isis also had strong connections to water and to the river itself.

From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby

"In the last year, we have observed fairly steady construction activity at the site," says Spencer Faragasso of the ISIS.

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

Barrack has suggested that Sharaa’s ascendance to power removes the U.S. rationale to keep its troops in northeastern Syria and support the militia group in its fight against Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026

Since then a major challenge has been how to integrate the Kurdish-led SDF, which the U.S. military worked with during the campaign against ISIS, with the new Syrian authorities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026

The US-led coalition "relied on Kurdish forces in Rojava to fight and defeat ISIS", Murad, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her work, wrote on X.

From Barron's ● Jan. 20, 2026

Our nearest border crossing is in Mursitpinar, twenty minutes’ drive from Kobani, but Turkey closed down the border there months ago, after the Protection Units took back Kobani from ISIS.

From "Without Refuge" by Jane Mitchell