Mephistopheles
/ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/
Mephistopheles proper noun: the Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.
Proper noun
Mephistopheles
- The Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.
- I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 215
- When I'm at the pearly gates / This'll be on my videotape, my videotape / When Mephistopheles is just beneath / And he's reaching up to grab me2007, “Videotape”, in In Rainbows, performed by Radiohead
Noun
Mephistopheles
- A fiendish person, especially one who tricks someone into following a destructive or disastrous course of action; a tempter.
- Poison in my idle mind makes quick work for the Mephistopheles, / Who quickly makes his excuses1989, Tim Smith, “Fast Robert”, in On Land and in the Sea, performed by Cardiacs
- A man weeping in moral torment over bags of money; another so bored, depressed and isolated that he can barely raise his eyes to yet another shopping cart full of cash. These are the products of what I have come to think of as Donaldson in full Mephistopheles mode. “Look what these creatures of...2025 June 3, Mark O’Connell, “‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star”, in The Guardian
Mephistopheles meaning in Tamil, Marathi and Arabic
Mephistopheles in Tamil
- கொடியவன்
Mephistopheles in Marathi
- Devil to whom Faust sold his soul
- मेफिस्टोफीलीस mephisṭophīlīs
Mephistopheles in Arabic
- Devil to whom Faust sold his soul
- مِفِسْتُوفِيلِيس mifistūfīlīs
Forms of Mephistopheles
| alternative form | Mephisto |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Mephostophiles |
| alternative form | Mephostophilus |
| alternative form | Mephistophiles |
| alternative form | Mephistopheles |
| alternative form | Mephistophiel |
Origin of Mephistopheles
Of uncertain origin. More information The two-time occurrence of -ph- which is the Roman transliteration for Ancient Greek φ and of the termination -es which transliterates Ancient Greek -ης as in Aristoteles (Ἀριστοτέλης) along with the resemblance -phel-/-phil- bears to φιλεῖν (phileîn, “to love”) has led many to believe that this must originally be a Greek compound word. Based on this assumption, the first two letters have been identified with μή (mḗ, “not”), while -phisto-/-phosto- has been interpreted as a corruption of φωτο- (phōto-), the compositional form of φῶς (phôs, “light”). The name would thus mean "not loving light" which seems fitting for a devil. However, there are two major problems with this theory. Firstly, phōto- is a common and clearly recognizable morpheme in Greek, making it an unlikely candidate for corruption. Secondly, μή (mḗ) is not typically used in Ancient Greek name formation. A more credible explanation has been proposed by Julius Goebel. He focuses on the alternative form Mephistophiel, which appears in the Praxis Cabulae nigrae Doctoris Johannis Fausti magi celeberrimi (1612). He interprets mephist- as a disguised form of megist-, transliterating...
Words formed from Mephistopheles
Questions about Mephistopheles
- What does Mephistopheles mean?
- Mephistopheles means the Devil to whom Faust sold his soul in the legend.
- What is Mephistopheles in Tamil?
- Mephistopheles in Tamil is கொடியவன். See Mephistopheles meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is Mephistopheles?
- Mephistopheles can be a proper noun or a noun.
- How do you pronounce Mephistopheles?
- Mephistopheles is pronounced /ˌmɛ.fɪˈstɒ.fɪ.liːz/.
Words near Mephistopheles in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Mephistopheles (page history and authors); Mephistopheles (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Mephistopheles.wav.
Cite this entry: “Mephistopheles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mephistopheles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.