phoenix

English phoenix comes through Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenīx, from Ancient Greek phoînix, which itself derives from Egyptian bnw, meaning 'grey heron.'

The grey heron was venerated at Heliopolis and linked to the cyclical renewal of life, since it rose in flight at dawn and returned each year with the Nile's floodwaters. Over centuries, and across Egyptian, Greek, and Latin retellings, that real bird's yearly return became the myth of a creature reborn from itself.

Phoenix is a doublet of Bennu, both descending from the same Egyptian word bnw for the grey heron.