Sisyphean

English

WOTD – 15 January 2007

Alternative forms

• Sisyphusean, sisyphean, Sisyphian, Sysyphean
• sisyphic, sisiphic

Etymology

From Sisyphus, from Ancient Greek Σίσυφος (Sísuphos). Sisyphus was a Greek mythological figure who was doomed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down again.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sīs'əfēʹən, IPA^(key): /ˌsɪsəˈfiːən/

• Audio (US):

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Adjective

Sisyphean (not comparable)

1. Incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile.

   Synonyms: like herding cats, like painting the Forth Bridge

   Sisyphean task

   Sisyphean labors

   • 1906, Mary Higgs, Glimpses into the Abyss‎^[1]:

     Four bucketsful of water—one for each cell—seven for the long passage, two for lavatory and w.c.'s, brasses to clean, paint to dust. It seemed a Sisyphean task, no sooner ended than a new one was exacted.

   • 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist‎^[2], volume 408, number 8848:

     As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.

   • 2020 September 7, Adam Ragusea, 0:14 from the start, in How refrigerators work, and how we all ended up with one‎^[3], Macon, archived from the original on 15 September 2024:

     Fact is, this appliance actually contains some heaters in addition to its coolers. That apparent self-defeating contradiction is not a Sisyphean exercise in futility devised as a cruel philosophical joke by nihilistic engineers. It's actually just one of several brilliant pieces of engineering that have made these ubiquitous boxes utterly transformative forces in our lives.

   • 2022 March 8, Lauren Smiley, “‘I’m the Operator’: The Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy”, in Wired‎^[4]:

     But whoever does the policing, whether a supervisor or an operator, faces a Sisyphean battle against a well-documented phenomenon: something called automation complacency. When you automate any part of a task, the human overseer starts to trust that the machine has it handled and stops paying attention.

2. (Greek mythology) Relating to Sisyphus.

Translations

incessant or incessantly recurring, but futile

• Bulgarian: сизифов (sizifov)
• Czech: sisyfovský
• Finnish: sisyfolainen (fi)
• French: sisyphéen (fr), sisyphien (fr)
• German: sisypheisch (rare)
• Hungarian: sziszifuszi (hu)
• Polish: syzyfowy (pl)
• Romanian: sisifian m or n
• Russian: сизи́фов (ru) (sizífov)
• Ukrainian: сізі́фів (sizífiv)

relating to Sisyphus

• Bulgarian: сизифов (sizifov)
• Finnish: sisyfolainen (fi), Sisyfoon
• Hungarian: sziszifuszi (hu)
• Polish: syzyfowy (pl)
• Ukrainian: сізі́фів (sizífiv)