Ouroboros

noun

Ou·​ro·​bo·​ros ˌyu̇r-ō-ˈbȯr-əs 

variants or ouroboros or less commonly Uroboros or uroboros

1

: a circular symbol that depicts a snake or dragon devouring its own tail and that is used especially to represent the eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth

2

usually ouroboros or less commonly uroboros : something (such as a never-ending cycle) that is likened to or suggestive of the Ouroboros symbol

Trauma is a time traveller, an ouroboros that reaches back and devours everything that came before.

—Junot Díaz

But as Hollywood continues its transformation into a reboot ouroboros of unoriginal ideas, I have a tiny bit of fear that these projects will be disasters.

—Miles Surrey

Examples of Ouroboros in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In like fashion, the Ouroboros snake that is the music world lives, breathes and progresses by repetitively making a grand meal of its own ass. —Jonathan Rowe, Spin, 11 Aug. 2023

Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. —James Vincent, The Verge, 26 June 2023

In ancient mythology, a tail-eating snake is called an ouroboros, from the Greek word that literally means tail-eating. —Sofia Quaglia, Discover Magazine, 23 Feb. 2023

This robot—the brainchild of students at Northeastern University—is meant to wiggle across difficult terrain, measure water in the pit of craters, and bite its own tail to become a spinning ouroboros tumbling down the side of a lunar cliff. —WIRED, 15 Feb. 2023

So basically, the AI becomes an ouroboros eating its own logical tail. —Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 14 Oct. 2022

The digital simulation produces a video loop of an ouroboros, a snake eating its tail, historically a symbolic of infinity or the cycle of life, death and rebirth. —April Wallace, Arkansas Online, 25 Sep. 2022

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Late Greek ourobóros "devouring (its) tail" (modifying drákōn "dragon, snake") from Greek ourá "tail" + -o- + -boros, nominal derivative from the base of bibrṓskein "to eat, eat up, devour" — more at ass entry 2, voracious

First Known Use

1921, in the meaning defined at sense 1