Definition of "sylph" [sylph]

• A slim, graceful woman or girl. (noun)
• In the occult philosophy of Paracelsus, a being that has air as its element. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Your sylph is a delightful girl, but you must learn to be more light-hearted when you call on her."
• ""A sylph is a fairy made of air who likes to play cruel tricks on little girls.""
• "The sylph was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in pale-gray, were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in order to pass them back again to the winning point, she looked round her with a survey too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a little of that nature which we call art concealing an inward exultation."