Phoenixとは

意味・読み方・使い方

別の表記

• phenix (古風な用法)
• phœnix (廃れた用法)

語源

From 古期英語 and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek φοῖνιξ (phoînix), from Egyptian bnw (boinu, “grey heron”). The grey heron was venerated at Heliopolis and associated in Egypt with the cyclical renewal of life because the bird rises in flight at dawn and migrates back every year in the flood season to inhabit the Nile waters.^[1]

発音

• enPR: fē'nĭks, IPA^(key): /ˈfiːnɪks/
• 韻: -iːnɪks

名詞

phoenix (複数形 phoenix または phoenixes または phoenices)

1. (mythology) A mythological bird, said to be the only one of its kind, which lives for 500 years and then dies by burning to ashes on a pyre of its own making, ignited by the sun. It then arises anew from the ashes.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 19”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, OCLC 216596634:

     burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood

2. (figuratively) Anything that is reborn after apparently being destroyed.

   Astronomers believe planets might form in this dead star's disk, like the mythical Phoenix rising up out of the ashes.

   • 1842, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Lady Anne Granard, volume 1, page 17:

     Lord Allerton was that modern phœnix, a young man, without a single objection.

   • 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 90:

     Many of the legitimate nightclubs of today sprang like legalized phoenixes from the still-hot ashes of the speakeasies of prohibition days.

3. (Chinese mythology) A mythological Chinese chimerical bird whose physical body symbolizes the six celestial bodies; a fenghuang.
4. (historical) A Greek silver coin used briefly from 1828 to 1832, divided into 100 lepta.
   • 2019, Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, Penguin 2020, p. 116:

     The national currency, the phoenix, which had been established by Kapodistrias, was renamed after an ancient Greek coin, the drachma.

動詞

phoenix (三人称単数 現在形 phoenixes, 現在分詞 phoenixing, 過去形および過去分詞形 phoenixed)

1. (Australia) To transfer assets from one company to another to dodge liability

   2019 December 17, Noel Gladstone; Carrie Fellner, “Small business flattened by 'dodgy' builders in phoenixing epidemic”, in The Sydney Morning Herald‎^[1]:

   Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association CEO John Winter said phoenixing has been "endemic" for decades.

   2020 September 24, Anne Davies, “Phoenixing: how unscrupulous dealers rise debt-free from the ashes of failed companies”, in The Sydney Morning Herald‎^[2]:

   The ATO defines iIllegal^{[sic – meaning illegal]} phoenixing as when a new company is created to continue the business of a company that has been deliberately liquidated to avoid paying its debts, including taxes, creditors and employee entitlements.

Further reading

• phoenix (mythology) on Wikipedia.
• fenghuang on Wikipedia.
• phoenix (currency) on Wikipedia.

参照