sphinxlike

Within hours of arriving in Venice, he begins to suspect that the city itself, with its disorienting streets and shady denizens, is somehow in cahoots with his sphinxlike wife to betray him.

Covering the meeting, The Times described the Chinese with the pejorative “Celestials,” as figures of “sphinxlike” demeanor.

Cryptics, by comparison, age gracefully: their sphinxlike wordplay has a long shelf life.

This sphinxlike silence is, in turn, conducive to a second, more intangible function: to serve as a conduit for mass emotion, a projection screen for national yearning or catharsis.

A memoir, Piepenbring writes in his introduction, might have enhanced the singer’s sphinxlike persona.