How to Use griffin in a Sentence

griffin

noun
Definition of griffinnext
  • Only the sphinxes stand guard vainly over the rivers, which are leaving, and the lions and the griffins.
    — Eugene Ostashevsky, The New York Review of Books, 4 May 2023
  • Hart said the debate over the griffin missed the bigger picture.
    — Ryan J. Foley, USA TODAY, 17 Sep. 2021
  • Choose from a dragon, a monkey, a cat, an owl or a griffin.
    — Emily Sabens, Indianapolis Star, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon.
    — Abby Gardner, Glamour, 13 May 2019
  • Rows of griffins and what look like monkey faces with wings line the building, each grouping framed by a stoic crowned face.
    — San Antonio Express-News, 28 Mar. 2020
  • But no sooner have the guests arrived than someone tips a heavy stone griffin down upon the star witness.
    — Tom Nolan, WSJ, 30 Nov. 2018
  • Supporters of the griffin, including the Back the Blue group, framed its removal as an affront to officers.
    — Ryan J. Foley, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Sep. 2021
  • All around us in the sanctuary, crumbling frescoes reached up into the nave: centaurs and griffins, eagle knights and coyote warriors.
    — Junot Díaz, The New Yorker, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Inside, skeletons of a lion, a boar, a griffin and a few other animals decorate the shelves.
    — Jane Perlez, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2017
  • The Dreaming has two gates — one of horn and one of ivory, built from the bones of ancient gods that picked a fight with Dream eons ago — and is usually guarded by three gatekeepers: a wyvern, a griffin, and a hippogriff.
    — Christian Holub, EW.com, 26 July 2022
  • See the colossal stone troll, the mysterious Indrik and Japanese Baku, the tooth fairy, adorable unicorns and majestic griffins.
    — Luann Gibbs, The Enquirer, 19 Mar. 2023
  • Born helpless, naked and unable to care for himself, Lore Sjöberg overcame these handicaps to become a boffin, a griffin and a muffin.
    — Loresjoberg, WIRED, 7 Oct. 2011
  • There is also an explosion of what look like giant grape vines (also wood-like), out of the pods of which erupt a crew of beasties: a gnashing cyclops, a gnashing griffin, and more gnashers.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 15 Mar. 2023
  • For every lion there’s a griffin — a lion’s body fused with an eagle’s head, wings and sometimes talons — and for every pelican, a fire-breathing dragon.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 July 2019
  • From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr.
    — Ocean Vuong, The New Yorker, 13 May 2017
  • Bestiaries extolled the glory of the Christian G od through the application of vivid splendor to his creation, whether proved to be real like a lion and pelican or believed to exist in a far-off realm like the griffin and unicorn.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 July 2019
  • Another yields seal stones carved with intricate designs: three reclining bulls; a griffin with outstretched wings.
    — Myrto Papadopoulos, Smithsonian, 30 Sep. 2017
  • Historian Adrienne Mayor argues that the Asian dinosaur Proceratops may have inspired myths of the griffin.
    — Manuel Balce Ceneta, National Geographic, 21 Sep. 2020
  • Instagram-ready three-dimensional models — including a dragon, a griffin, a unicorn and a winged horse — are stationed throughout the gallery.
    — Deborah Martin, ExpressNews.com, 27 Sep. 2019
  • The backlash has intensified since last fall, when the City Council began pushing to remove the department’s emblem – a winged creature known as a griffin that had adorned patches on officers’ uniforms since the 1960s.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 15 July 2021
  • The clergy and royal courts in days of yore used images of griffins, hellmouths, harpies, dragons and sea swine to instill fear, to divide anxious populations, to assert dominance and control, and to ostracize non-Europeans.
    — Steven Litt, cleveland.com, 1 Sep. 2019
  • Bacteria had eaten away at the iron artifacts onboard, but wooden artifacts, including the masthead of a griffin-dog chimera holding a person’s head in its mouth, remained intact.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Sep. 2020
  • Yet as noted, geomyths like the griffin and Cyclopes arose from specific geographical regions that feature remains not found elsewhere.
    — Timothy John Burbery, The Conversation, 6 Aug. 2021
  • Plenty of other fascinating wild beasts—both real (tigers, antelopes, pelicans) and imaginary (griffins, dragons, bonnacons)—run rampant through the galleries.
    — Judith H. Dobrzynski, WSJ, 15 June 2019
  • The exterior of the Detroit Foundation Hotel is embellished with terra-cotta details, including firefighters' heads, angels and griffins in hats.
    — Rebecca Powers, chicagotribune.com, 1 May 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'griffin.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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