Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • The capital and largest city of Arizona, in the south-central part of the state northwest of Tucson. Founded in the 1860s on the site of an ancient Hohokam settlement, it became territorial capital in 1889 and state capital in 1912.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun mythology A mythical firebird; especially the sacred one from ancient Egyptian mythology
  • proper noun astronomy A spring constellation of the southern sky, said to resemble the mythical bird. It lies north of Tucana.
  • proper noun Greek mythology A character in the Iliad and father of Adonis in Greek mythology or a different character in Greek mythology, brother of Europa and Cadmus
  • proper noun The capital city of Arizona, United States.
  • proper noun A nickname sometimes used for Japan after World War II.
  • proper noun A taxonomic genus within the tribe Phoeniceae — the date palms.
  • proper noun A taxonomic genus within the family Sphingidae — certain butterflies.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a constellation in the southern hemisphere near Tucana and Sculptor
  • noun a large monocotyledonous genus of pinnate-leaved palms found in Asia and Africa
  • noun a legendary Arabian bird said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix; according to most versions only one phoenix lived at a time and it renewed itself every 500 years
  • noun the state capital and largest city located in south central Arizona; situated in a former desert that has become a prosperous agricultural area thanks to irrigation

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek φοῖνιξ (phoinix), Φοῖνιξ (Phoinix)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek φοῖνιξ (phoinix), Φοῖνιξ (Phoinix), from Egyptian Fnkhw ("Syrian people"). Signifies "mythical bird," also "the date" (fruit and tree), also "Phoenician," literally "purple-red," perhaps a foreign word, or from phoinos ("blood-red"). Exact relation and order of the senses in Greek is unclear.

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