prettygoodword | sphingine

sphingine (SFIN-jeen, SFIN-jen) - adj., of, pertaining to, or resembling a sphinx; enigmatic, inscrutible.

I will never get tired of words that start sph-, and was gleeful to find one I'd never met before. So physically like a figure with the head of a human and body of a lion or other great cat, either with or without wings, or hard to understand, as in the sphinx outside the gates of Thebes that killed anyone who couldn't answer her riddle. It's not a common word, and I take it as entirely typical that the two usage examples at Wiktionary are from Aldus Huxley and Lawrence Durrell. Sphing- is the combining form of Ancient Greek sphinx, which might be from sphíngō, to strangle/squeeze (whence also sphincter), or might be from Egyptian šzp-ꜥnḫ (shesepankh), divine/living image.