Mephistopheles

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Railroad magnate and speculator Jay Gould was dubbed “the Mephistopheles of Wall Street” by ministers on the pulpit.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 2, 2025

In life, however, Höfgen plays Faust, the weak, tempted one, while the part of Mephistopheles is taken by the Nazi state and its functionaries.

From New York Times • Sep. 11, 2020

Like Faust, he’s incessantly creative and ambitious; like Mephistopheles, he has in a sardonic eye for human vanity and striving.

From The Guardian • Jul. 16, 2018

Slipak, who had won fame in France for his renditions of the aria of Mephistopheles from the opera “Faust,” adopted the nom-de-guerre Meph.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 1, 2016

But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac.

From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Fuller, Margaret