sylphlike

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Adjective

sylphlike

1. Resembling (that of) a sylph; slender and graceful.
   • 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley, St. Irvyne, Chapter IV,

     Soon advancing through the hall, he saw the sylphlike figure of the lovely Olympia […]

   • 1821, Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, Act IV, lines 57-61,

     […] the thin robes

     Floating like light clouds ’twixt our gaze and heaven;

     The many-twinkling feet so small and sylphlike,

     Suggesting the more secret symmetry

     Of the fair forms which terminate so well—

   • 1988, Edmund White, The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, 1994, Chapter Four,

     Once Tex had said to me, very sister-to-sister, “Aren’t we mad, we gay boys, starving ourselves to sylphlike fragility, all so we can attract a straight cop with a beer belly?”

   • 2001, “Emily Eakin, The Way We Live Now: 12-02-01: Phenomenon; Tiny Dancers,” The New York Times, 2 December, 2001,

     Here we see a few of the 48 diminutive hopefuls who showed up that day, awaiting their turn to impress the judges with a high instep or a particularly sylphlike extension.

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