sphexish

== English == === Etymology === From sphex (“sand wasp of Sphex or an allied genus”) +‎ -ish (suffix meaning ‘being like, similar to, typical of’), coined by the American scientist and scholar of comparative literature Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in a September 1982 “Metamagical Themas” column in Scientific American, after a study of the behaviour of sphexide wasps. Sphex is derived from Ancient Greek σφήξ (sphḗx, “wasp”), either from Proto-Indo-European *bʰey- (“bee”) or a Pre-Greek word. === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ˈsfɛksɪʃ/ Hyphenation: sphex‧ish === Adjective === sphexish (comparative more sphexish, superlative most sphexish) (philosophy) Of animal behaviour: deterministic, preprogrammed. [from 1982] Antonym: antisphexish ==== Derived terms ==== antisphexish antisphexishness sphexishness ==== Related terms ==== sphex, Sphex sphexide ==== Translations ==== === References === === Further reading === Sphex on Wikipedia.Wikipedia G. Scott Acton (May 1998), “Sphexishness”, in Great Ideas in Personality‎[1], archived from the original on 9 November 2020