SYLPH  , an imaginary spirit of the

air; according to Paracelsus, the first modern writer who uses the word, an air-elemental, coming between material and immaterial beings . In current usage, the term is applied to a feminine spirit or fairy, and is often used in a figurative sense of a graceful, slender girl or young woman . The form of the word points to a Greek origin, and Aristotle's aLX4ni, a kind of beetle (Hist. anim- . 8 . 17 . 8), has usually been taken as the source . Similarly, the earthelementals or earth-spirits were in Paracelsus's nomenclature, " gnomes " (Gr. yv& n , intelligence, yzyvwazcety, to know) as being the spirits that gave the secrets of the earth to mortals . Littre, however, takes the word to be Old Celtic, and meaning " genius," and states that it occurs in such forms as sylfi, sylfi, &c., in inscriptions, or latinized as sulevae or suleviae .