Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Greek Mythology Of or relating to Sisyphus.
- adj. Endlessly laborious or futile: "Their patients' lack of education and the high cost of medicine make health care a Sisyphean task” ( Frank Gibney, Jr.)
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Relating or pertaining to Sisyphus, in Greek mythology, a king of Corinth, whose punishment in Tartarus for his crimes consisted in rolling a huge stone to the top of a hill, whence it constantly rolled down again, thus rendering his labor incessant; hence, recurring unceasingly: as, to engage in a Sisyphean task.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Relating to Sisyphus; incessantly recurring.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. both extremely effortful and futile
- adj. of or relating to Sisyphus
Etymologies
- From Sisyphus, from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος (Sisuphos). Sisyphus was a Greek mythological figure who was doomed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill in Hades. (Wiktionary)
- From Latin Sisyphēius, from Greek Sisupheios, from Sisuphos, Sisyphus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Today, the word Sisyphean is used to describe a labor without goal, purpose, or reward.”
“Editorial Anonymous: On the Effort Meter, This Manuscript Is Reading 'Sisyphean”
“On the Effort Meter, This Manuscript Is Reading 'Sisyphean”
“Substituting Herculean for Sisyphean will result in the correct Grecian adjective.”
“No, it would be a Sisyphean task only if the bricks reassembled themselves into the shape of a garage after they were taken down ….”
“After many years of this Sisyphean activity, I was accostedlast month (in my post-Christmas clear out mode) in the Princess Alice Hospice shop in Kingston, when dropping off a bag of (what I thought to be) a rather saleable suit, some books, a pair of shoes and some outgrown children's cardigans.”
“The man had been expecting the boy to hand him a thick stack of papers, jabbed through carelessly by a staple whose binding powers were far exceeded, a staple that hung on for dear life knowing it either must continue to perform the Sisyphean task or forever be lost in the messy tangles of carpet hair.”
“It is Sisyphean, I tell you, the work of managing a household while tending to two very small children and a tidiness-challenged husband.”
Good Housekeeping: Totally Slobtastic Slackermom Edition | Her Bad Mother
“But however hard we tried to refocus on a thrilling finale between two Aussies and a South African we knew Rory was still out there, trapped in his Sisyphean torture.”
The Guardian: Why it was all or nothing for Rory McIlroy at the Masters
“It also helps that women feel the candidates we support understand our choices and dilemmas as we attempt to tackle the Sisyphean task of being a working parent in a rough and scary economy.”
The Huffington Post: Morra Aarons-Mele: Working Mom Guilt is a Political Issue
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Sisyphean’.
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1908 more...
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adj. + adv.
vainglorious, lanuginous, altiloquent, ambisextrous, desiderative, flothery, liquescent, logoed, autotelic, tropology, erotogenic, crocky and 108 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
mulct, dupe, pittance, stipend, defray, cupidity, avarice, prodigal, profligate, affluent, insolvent, penurious and 533 more...
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Smart Words
polysemy, dichotomy, metonymy, parapraxis, synecdoche, prosopopeia, mimesis, schadenfreude, pulchritudinous, neolithic, limn, phantasmagoric and 138 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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words from Greek history and philosophy
Sisyphean, Arcadian, Croesus, cynic, Draconian, epicure, epicurean, Gordian knot, laconic, mausoleum, ostracism, philippic and 7 more...
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Economist
excoriate, Panglossian, malefactor, sclerotic, insouciance, revanchism, hegemony, haughty, oenophilia, ethereal, inveterate, Sisyphean and 28 more...
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Laiane's Words
ampersand, antediluvian, diaspora, canny, egregious, illusory, torrid, abeyance, banal, ennui, tapir, chortle and 39 more...
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Mythology
Odin, sprite, selkie, Thanatos, Sisyphean, Götterdämmerung, bahamut, ægis, omphalos, hippogriff, ouroboros, Elysium and 4 more...
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My Idiosyncratic Jargon
I have my own vocabulary filled up by these seemingly off-kilter terms/expressions/interjections/intensifiers. I hated my frenemies (a.k.a. classmates who kept copying my idiosyncratic diction) for...
batshitcrazy, frakkin, manichean, terpsichore, opprobrium, ignominy, alacrity, tautology, pleonasm, opprobriously, Sisyphean, schadenfreude and 35 more...
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Eponyms
Words inspired by real-life figures or fictional characters, especially those I either love or hate-to-love and love-to-hate.
kafkan, nietzschean, apollonian, alighierian, palahniukian, Aristotelian, quixotic, Shakespearean, Herculean, lovecraftian, kubrickian, wellesian and 10 more...
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PresentSimple's List
Words which I have came across and want to remember.
dasypygal, patois, anhedonia, aculia, pleonasm, tautology, verbose, disingenuous, felicitous, bête noire, dissolute, scatology and 83 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for Sisyphean.
jpin From m-w.com word of the day:
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who annoyed the gods with his trickery. As a consequence, he was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill in the underworld, only to watch it roll back down. The story of Sisyphus is often told in conjunction with that of Tantalus, who was condemned to stand beneath fruit-laden boughs, up to his chin in water. Whenever he bent his head to drink, the water receded, and whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches moved beyond his grasp. Thus to "tantalize" is to tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach -- and something "Sisyphean" (or "Sisyphian," pronounced \sih-SIFF-ee-un\) demands unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts. Sep 12, 2010