From the book
Lysis
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordApostereō means deprive; rob someone or something of a possession or capacity.
- In LysisAt 217e a presence of badness that actually makes its bearer bad deprives it of desire and friendship for the good.
- Reading contextThat distinction motivates the analogy between merely coated hair and hair genuinely changed by age.
- A place to readThe Greek example means “Deprives it of desire.”
- English renderings
- Deprive; rob someone or something of a possession or capacity
Meaning
Deprive; rob someone or something of a possession or capacity.
Grammatical category: verb.
Use in the book
At 217e a presence of badness that actually makes its bearer bad deprives it of desire and friendship for the good. The object is the bearer, while the genitives identify what it loses.
The verb is stronger than saying that badness accompanies desire. It describes the loss of the very orientation that previously directed the neither-good-nor-bad towards good. That distinction motivates the analogy between merely coated hair and hair genuinely changed by age.
Places to read
- 217eἀποστερεῖ αὐτὸ τῆς τε ἐπιθυμίας — Deprives it of desire.