sibylline

English

Michelangelo’s rendering of the Cumaean Sibyl

Latin sibyllinus,[1] Sibillinus,[2] from Sibylla.

sibylline (not comparable)

Of or pertaining to or resembling a sibyl or female oracle, especially the Cumaean Sibyl and the Sibylline Books. [from late 16th c.]
Synonym: sibyllic
- 1922, Baroness Orczy, “Mice and Men”, in The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel:
  But directly she had closed the door behind her, Mother Théot's manner underwent a chance. Here the broad light of day appeared to divest her of all her sybilline attributes. She became just an ugly old woman, wrinkled and hook-nosed, dressed in shabby draperies that were grey with age and dirt, and with claw-like hands that looked like the talons of a bird of prey.
- 1998, Deborah J. Bennett, Randomness, Harvard University Press, p. 42
  Another early form of rhapsodomancy is represented by the sibylline books.
1. (by extension) Having oracle-like predicting powers, clairvoyant.
2. (by extension) Occult, mysterious.
  Synonym: enigmatic
Excessively and exorbitantly expensive. (In allusion to the Sibyl who sold three books to Tarquinius Superbus at the price of the original nine.)

sibylline (plural sibyllines)

pertaining to a sibyl

clairvoyant

mysterious

sibylline