phenix, phenix, fenix

[Lat. phenix, pho-lid-o-gas-tër, s. [Pref. pholido-, and Gr. from Gr. phoinix; Fr. phénix.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. Lit .: In the same sense as II. 4. *2. Fig .: A paragon; a person or thing of extreme rarity or excellence. "For God's love let him not be a phenix , let him not be alone, let him not be an hermit closed in a wall."-Latimer : Ser. 1, Before King Edward. II. Technically : 1. Astron .: One of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, north of the bright star Achernar in Eridanus. 2. Bot .: The typical genus of the family Phonic ide (q. v.). Diecious trees with pinnate leaves; calyx three toothed; petals three, stamens six, rarely three or nine; filaments very short, ovaries three, only one coming to perfection. Habitat, Northern Africa and Southern Asia. Known species about twelve. Phœnix dactyli fer a is the Date Palm (q. v.). P. sylvestris is the Wild Date, a tree thirty or forty feet high, very common, both wild and cultivated, in India. The fibrous leaflets and the fibers from the petioles are manufactured into mats, ropes, and baskets; sugar is made from the sap of the tree, which, moreover, yields gum. The juice of P. far in if era , a small species in sandy parts of India, yields sago; its leaves are used in mat-making, and those of P. paludosa , which grows in the Sunder bunds, for rough ropes and thatching. The fruit of P. a caulis , a stemle species from the Sub-Him a lay as and Central India, is eaten by the natives, and the pith is made into sago. 3. Entom .: Cidaria ribesaria , a geometer moth, the larva of which feeds on currant and gooseberry bushes. 4. Mythol.: A fabulous female bird of Arabia which was feigned to live for five or six hundred years in the desert, when she built for herself a funeral pyre of wood and aromatic gums, to which she set fire by the fanning of her wings, and so consumed herself; but from the ashes she sprang up again in youth and freshne . Hence the Phœnix is frequently found depicted as an emblem of im mortality. In heraldry the bird is represented in in flames. phœnix-clubs, s. pl . Irish Hist .: Anti-English clubs established in Ireland in 1858. The members met at night to drill. A year or two later the English Government succeeded in putting them down.