sylphidn.adj.

1680 A. L. tr. N. de Montfaucon de Villars Count of Gabalis 67 As to marriage, I would advise you to take a sylphide.

1714 A. Pope Rape of Lock (new ed.) ii. 14 Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your Chief give Ear.

1803 H. K. White Clifton Grove 6 Hosts of Sylphids on the Moon-beam sail.

1814 Gonzanga v. i, in J. Galt New Brit. Theatre III. 145 Let me catch my runaway sylphid of the woods by the leg, what a delightful scene of raillery I'll have with him.

1837 E. Bulwer-Lytton Ernest Maltravers I. iii. ii. 274 Worse than the Rosicrucians, it is to make a sacrifice of all human beauty for the smile of a sylphid, that never visits us but in visions.

1850 W. M. Thackeray Pendennis I. xxxviii. 37 Our little Sylphide, who scarcely ate at dinner more than the six grains of rice of Amina.

1897 A. C. Gunter Susan Turnbull xxi. 276 She bounds with the grace of a sylphide.

1779 Duchess of Devonshire Sylph I. 195 My connexion with the Sylphiad [sic] tribe.

1803 J. Porter Thaddeus of Warsaw xxii He ventured to look once only at her Sylphid figure.

1808 W. Scott Marmion ii. Introd. 64 If to Sylphid Queen 'twere given, To shew our earth the charms of heaven, She could not glide along the air, With form more light.

1853 E. S. Sheppard Charles Auchester II. 204 If he were small and sylphid seated by his majestic mother, how tiny was that delicate satellite of his.