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.

---

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.

---

Isis ¹ British  

/ ˈaɪsɪs /

noun

1. the local name for the River Thames at Oxford

---

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

---

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

The major rediscovery, and the title subject of the documentary, is the Temple of Isis that sat upon the island of Antirhodos, itself residing in a soggy grave.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 14, 2025

For Isis Wharton, the plate is simply factual.

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

"Our joint counterterrorism operations have degraded Isis and Al-Shabaab across East Africa," Mr Biden said.

From BBC • May 23, 2024

And since the pharaohs were supposed to be related to the gods, it really didn’t matter if Isis and Nefertiti got a little bit confused.

From "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder