sphinx

IPA: sfˈɪŋks

(mythology) A creature with the head of a person and the body of an animal (commonly a lion).
A person who keeps his/her thoughts and intentions secret; an enigmatic or impassive person.
(dated) A mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx), formerly classified as a baboon, and called sphinx baboon.
A sphinx moth.
(rare) A sphincter.
(usually with "the") An ancient, large statue in Egypt, with the face of a man and the body of a lion, lying near the Great Pyramids.
(Greek mythology) One of the many offspring of Typhon and Echidna, a winged lion-like creature with a woman's face, who committed suicide out of frustration after Oedipus managed to solve her riddles.

Examples of "sphinx" in Sentences

The second, with rough hair, is called sphinx, and is docile, not wild.
We grow it, and we found what we identified as sphinx moth larvae on the plants.
A sphinx is a mythological creature that is depicted as a recumbent feline with a human head.
She is known as the sphinx of Indian politics, the mysterious widow who rose to lead a nation of 1.14 billion people.
The sphinx is a purely Egyptian monster and of immemorial antiquity, the Great Sphinx of Ghizeh being probably the oldest monument in Egypt.
His sphinx is a statue, his hind of arcadia is your garden variety moose, as his Cerberus is a urinating hiding mafioso and his three Rhodesian ridgebacks.
But that doesn't give me the right to stick my nose into their conversations and correct them about the etymology of the word sphinx or the value of Chrysler products.
Note their size and colour, the oblique stripes on the sides, the horn which is used for terrifying assailants, the habit of remaining rigid for hours -- hence the name sphinx moth.
He felt her claws penetrate his cranium and touch his brain and he began to have visions of sphinx's flying at him (he didn't know they were called sphinx's, but he'd seen them on TV and knew what they looked like), sphinx's laughing and waving their claws and flapping their wings and swishing their enormous tails like cats about to pounce.