Word.ws English Dictionary

Iphis

Iphis proper noun: the daughter of Ligdus and Telethusa, who, as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, was raised as male and was eventually transformed into a man by the goddess Isis in order to marry Ianthe, daughter of Telestes.

Proper noun

Iphis

  1. (Greek) The daughter of Ligdus and Telethusa, who, as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, was raised as male and was eventually transformed into a man by the goddess Isis in order to marry Ianthe, daughter of Telestes.
  2. (Greek) A (female) native of Skyros, captured by Achilles and given to his companion-in-arms, Patroclus, as slave, as recounted in the Iliad.
  3. (Greek) A (male) Cypriot shepherd who, as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, loved a woman named Anaxarete, whose indifference led him to kill himself in despair.
  4. (Greek) One of the Argonauts, the son of Sthenelus and brother of Eurystheus; also called Iphitos or Iphitus,

Origin of Iphis

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἶφις (Îphis).

Questions about Iphis

What does Iphis mean?
Iphis means the daughter of Ligdus and Telethusa, who, as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, was raised as male and was eventually transformed into a man by the goddess Isis in order to marry Ianthe, daughter of Telestes.
What part of speech is Iphis?
Iphis is a proper noun.

Words near Iphis in the dictionary

  1. Iphidamas
  2. Iphigeneia
  3. Iphigenia
  4. Iphimedeia
  5. Iphimedia
  6. Iphis
  7. iPhone
  8. iPhone face
  9. iPhone moment
  10. iPhone moments
  11. iPhoneography

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Iphis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Iphis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/iphis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.