A Chymical Dictionary

Spagirus

Operations instruments and practitioners · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. The alchemical practitioner defined through discrimination and separation.

In the book. The entry therefore supplies more than a label for a person who owns apparatus.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 43; facsimile PDF page 371.

Historical Definition

Spagirus or spagiricus is someone who knows how to distinguish good from bad and separate pure from impure: a chemist or alchemist.

Meaning

The definition gives a competence before it supplies the occupational equivalents. Knowing how to distinguish and separate identifies the practitioner. Good and bad are paired with pure and impure, connecting judgment with the handling of materials.

Use in the Book

The entry therefore supplies more than a label for a person who owns apparatus. It makes the success of the art depend on recognizing what should be retained and what should be removed. This is especially useful beside Quintessentia, where purity is raised by separation, and Regulus, where the pure metallic portion remains after dregs are removed.

The parallels should preserve their subjects. Quintessence is described through living things; regulus through metals or minerals. Spagirus names the artist’s discriminating skill across such operations, without declaring all resulting products identical. Saphirea materia offers another connection: its liquid is free of corruption because the pure has been separated from the impure.

Good and bad can also describe the valuation of practitioners. Sophistæ sometimes praises a master of an art and sometimes condemns a deceiver. That neighboring distinction helps readers see why the dictionary’s occupational vocabulary needs attention to both ability and evaluation.

Places to Read

Quintessentia. A purified spiritual matter obtained from living things.

Regulus. The purified metallic or mineral portion after separation.

Saphirea materia. A liquid defined through purity achieved by separation.

In This Edition

Chemist modernises Chymist in the historical definition. Its meaning is governed by the seventeenth-century gloss and should not be read as a claim that the practitioner occupies a present-day scientific profession. The article retains alchemist alongside it because the source gives both. The forms Spagirus and spagiricus remain directly findable.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 43; facsimile PDF page 371 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Spagirus; 1650 facsimile PDF p. 371; compare Quintessentia, Regulus, Saphirea materia, Sophistæ, Spagiria, Ysopus

See also. Quintessentia; Regulus; Saphirea materia; Sophistæ; Spagiria; Ysopus