See Sisyphean on Wiktionary
{
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"etymology_text": "From Sisyphus, from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος (Sísuphos). Sisyphus was a Greek mythological figure who was doomed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down again.",
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"text": "Sisyphean task",
"type": "example"
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{
"text": "Sisyphean labors",
"type": "example"
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{
"ref": "1906, Mary Higgs, Glimpses into the Abyss:",
"text": "Four bucketsful of water—one for each cell—seven for the long passage, two for lavatory and w.c.'s, brasses to clean, paint to dust. It seemed a Sisyphean task, no sooner ended than a new one was exacted.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:",
"text": "As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020 September 7, Adam Ragusea, 0:14 from the start, in How refrigerators work, and how we all ended up with one, Macon, archived from the original on 2024-09-15:",
"text": "Fact is, this appliance actually contains some heaters in addition to its coolers. That apparent self-defeating contradiction is not a Sisyphean exercise in futility devised as a cruel philosophical joke by nihilistic engineers. It's actually just one of several brilliant pieces of engineering that have made these ubiquitous boxes utterly transformative forces in our lives.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 March 8, Lauren Smiley, “‘I’m the Operator’: The Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy”, in Wired:",
"text": "But whoever does the policing, whether a supervisor or an operator, faces a Sisyphean battle against a well-documented phenomenon: something called automation complacency. When you automate any part of a task, the human overseer starts to trust that the machine has it handled and stops paying attention.",
"type": "quote"
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],
"glosses": [
"Incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile."
],
"id": "en-Sisyphean-en-adj-fetE0Ikl",
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"Incessant",
"incessant"
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "herd cats"
},
{
"word": "like painting the Forth Bridge"
}
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"tags": [
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"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "sizifov",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сизифов"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyfovský"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyfolainen"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyphéen"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyphien"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "sisypheisch"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sziszifuszi"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "syzyfowy"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"neuter"
],
"word": "sisifian"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "sizífov",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сизи́фов"
},
{
"_dis1": "98 2",
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "sizífiv",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сізі́фів"
}
]
},
{
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{
"_dis1": "0 100",
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"roman": "sizifov",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "сизифов"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "sisyfolainen"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "Sisyfoon"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "sziszifuszi"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "syzyfowy"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "sizífiv",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "сізі́фів"
}
]
}
],
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{
"enpr": "sīs'əfēʹən"
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌsɪsəˈfiːən/"
},
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"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "Sisyphusean"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "sisyphean"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "Sisyphian"
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{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "Sysyphean"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "sisyphic"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "sisiphic"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Sisyphean"
],
"word": "Sisyphean"
}
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"Terms with Czech translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with German translations",
"Terms with Hungarian translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Romanian translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"Terms with Ukrainian translations"
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],
"etymology_text": "From Sisyphus, from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος (Sísuphos). Sisyphus was a Greek mythological figure who was doomed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down again.",
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{
"text": "Sisyphean task",
"type": "example"
},
{
"text": "Sisyphean labors",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1906, Mary Higgs, Glimpses into the Abyss:",
"text": "Four bucketsful of water—one for each cell—seven for the long passage, two for lavatory and w.c.'s, brasses to clean, paint to dust. It seemed a Sisyphean task, no sooner ended than a new one was exacted.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:",
"text": "As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2020 September 7, Adam Ragusea, 0:14 from the start, in How refrigerators work, and how we all ended up with one, Macon, archived from the original on 2024-09-15:",
"text": "Fact is, this appliance actually contains some heaters in addition to its coolers. That apparent self-defeating contradiction is not a Sisyphean exercise in futility devised as a cruel philosophical joke by nihilistic engineers. It's actually just one of several brilliant pieces of engineering that have made these ubiquitous boxes utterly transformative forces in our lives.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 March 8, Lauren Smiley, “‘I’m the Operator’: The Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy”, in Wired:",
"text": "But whoever does the policing, whether a supervisor or an operator, faces a Sisyphean battle against a well-documented phenomenon: something called automation complacency. When you automate any part of a task, the human overseer starts to trust that the machine has it handled and stops paying attention.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile."
],
"links": [
[
"Incessant",
"incessant"
],
[
"recur",
"recur"
],
[
"futile",
"futile"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "herd cats"
},
{
"word": "like painting the Forth Bridge"
}
],
"tags": [
"not-comparable"
]
},
{
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"Relating to Sisyphus."
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"(Greek mythology) Relating to Sisyphus."
],
"tags": [
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],
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],
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"enpr": "sīs'əfēʹən"
},
{
"ipa": "/ˌsɪsəˈfiːən/"
},
{
"audio": "En-us-Sisyphean.ogg",
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "Sisyphusean"
},
{
"word": "sisyphean"
},
{
"word": "Sisyphian"
},
{
"word": "Sysyphean"
},
{
"word": "sisyphic"
},
{
"word": "sisiphic"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "sizifov",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сизифов"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyfovský"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyfolainen"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyphéen"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sisyphien"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"tags": [
"rare"
],
"word": "sisypheisch"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "sziszifuszi"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "syzyfowy"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"neuter"
],
"word": "sisifian"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "sizífov",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сизи́фов"
},
{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "sizífiv",
"sense": "incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile",
"word": "сізі́фів"
},
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "sizifov",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "сизифов"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "sisyfolainen"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "Sisyfoon"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "sziszifuszi"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "syzyfowy"
},
{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "sizífiv",
"sense": "relating to Sisyphus",
"word": "сізі́фів"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Sisyphean"
],
"word": "Sisyphean"
}
Download raw JSONL data for Sisyphean meaning in All languages combined (6.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.