Words · Meanings · Passages
Traherne Lexicon
A Reader’s Companion to Centuries of Meditations
471 entries · 0 subsidiary termsEntries
1–36 of 471
Abundance
Abundance is a fullness that exceeds a narrow allowance.
Centuries of Meditations
Accident and substance
An accident may be a contingent occurrence or a nonessential feature; in philosophical argument it is distinguished from the substance in which a feature inheres.
Centuries of Meditations
Account and reckoning
To account something a good is to esteem or judge it such.
Centuries of Meditations
Action and activity
Action is an exercise of power; activity is its energetic employment.
Centuries of Meditations
Adam
Adam is the first human being in the Genesis narrative and, for Traherne, the exemplary first recipient of creation.
Centuries of Meditations
Adequate object
An adequate object fully answers the power directed towards it.
Centuries of Meditations
Admiration
Admiration is wondering contemplation of what exceeds an ordinary measure.
Centuries of Meditations
Adoration
Adoration is reverent worship, often embodied in lifted eyes, hands, and praise.
Centuries of Meditations
Affection
Affections are the soul's directed movements of love, desire, joy, and related feeling.
Centuries of Meditations
Affliction
An affliction is a suffering or adversity borne by someone: illness, loss, persecution, or another distress.
Centuries of Meditations
Age and ages
An age is a period of human or cosmic history, though it may also mean a person's lifetime.
Centuries of Meditations
Air
Air is the transparent, breathable medium between earth and heaven.
Centuries of Meditations
Alchemy and philosopher’s stone
Alchemy sought transformations of matter, famously the conversion of base metals into gold through the philosopher’s stone.
Centuries of Meditations
Alexander the Great
The Macedonian conqueror enters as a proverbial figure of ambition that has exhausted one world and desires others.
Centuries of Meditations
All and everything
“All” is Traherne's recurring universal term.
Centuries of Meditations
Allegory and parable
A parable is a story or figurative utterance that discloses a truth through another subject.
Centuries of Meditations
Altar
An altar is a place of sacrificial offering.
Centuries of Meditations
Amasis
Amasis is the Egyptian king named in the anecdote asking the Greek wise men what is most beautiful.
Centuries of Meditations
Ambition
Ambition is an aspiring desire for honour, greatness, or advancement.
Centuries of Meditations
Amphion
Amphion is the legendary musician whose playing drew stones into the walls of Thebes.
Centuries of Meditations
Angel and messenger
Angels are created spiritual persons associated with divine service and heavenly knowledge.
Centuries of Meditations
Anger
Anger is a response to perceived wrong or resistance.
Centuries of Meditations
Annihilation
To annihilate is to reduce to nothing.
Centuries of Meditations
Anselm
Anselm is the medieval theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury, dated 1033–1109 in the supplied note.
Centuries of Meditations
Antipodes
The antipodes are people or places on the opposite side of the globe.
Centuries of Meditations
Apostasy
Apostasy is a falling away or abandonment.
Centuries of Meditations
Appetite
Appetite is a natural inclination toward a desired satisfaction, often associated with bodily desire.
Centuries of Meditations
Apprehension
Apprehension is the mind's grasp or conception of an object.
Centuries of Meditations
Aristotle
Aristotle appears as a named authority for the relation of felicity to the exercise of virtue.
Centuries of Meditations
Art and artifice
Art is purposeful skill, learned method, or devised workmanship.
Centuries of Meditations
Atheism
An atheist is a denier of God.
Centuries of Meditations
Attraction and loadstone
A loadstone is a naturally magnetic stone.
Centuries of Meditations
Authority
Authority is a recognized power to command, guide, or establish what others accept.
Centuries of Meditations
Awakening
Awakening is a passage from sleep or inattention into active awareness.
Centuries of Meditations
Babel
Babel evokes the biblical association of human building with confusion.
Centuries of Meditations
Balance and proportion
A balance weighs; proportion expresses a fitting relation between quantities, powers, or ends.
Centuries of Meditations
About this collection
October 2026
Centuries of Meditations · Thomas Traherne
About this collection and downloads
471 contextual articles from the complete Centuries of Meditations, with 410 numbered positions, including the editorial notice at II.88 and the unfinished Fifth Century ending at V.10.
A companion for reading
This lexicon accompanies Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditations in the Diotimos Editions annotated edition of 2026. Its 471 articles explain the book's characteristic words, recurrent images, scriptural figures and habits of argument. They range from everyday things, such as air, corn and water, to the governing ideas of felicity, enjoyment, love, infinity and possession. The scope is the complete work: four numbered Centuries followed by the unfinished Fifth. The numbering runs through 410 positions, but there are 409 actual meditations. At II.88 the Diotimos edition prints only an editorial notice: its explanatory note says that Traherne skipped that number, with no missing text. The Fifth Century ends at V.10.
Traherne repeatedly gives familiar words unfamiliar work. To enjoy is to enter into delighted possession; a want can disclose a capacity; a common thing can be a greater treasure than a rarity. These senses are best learned by returning to the passages where they operate. The lexicon therefore offers interpretation alongside lexical explanation. It does not replace continuous reading, and a cross-reference is an invitation to compare, not a claim that two words mean the same thing.
The articles are arranged alphabetically. Traherne wrote in English, so the line beneath each headword gives English forms and useful equivalents. Related forms and less prominent senses can be found through the lexical index. Longer articles make room for the distinctions that carry the argument; shorter ones explain a particular image, older usage or local difficulty.
How to read an entry
The word identifies the sense that matters here, including older uses that a modern reader might miss. In Traherne follows the word or idea through the Centuries. This is a reading of the cited passages, not a set of definitions attributed to Traherne. Some articles include additional named discussions where a central concept needs more space.
The places gives selected, annotated references. These are guides to fruitful reading, not exhaustive concordances. In this edition points out a lexical, spelling or editorial issue that affects interpretation. See also links to other articles. The source note attached to the forms line records the textual basis of the article. Headwords sometimes normalize an inflected form or name a clearly present idea; the article states the relation to the wording of the text.
Three indexes supplement the alphabetical sequence. The Lexical forms and aliases index helps readers find related English forms and expressions. The Passage index leads from a cited meditation to the articles that discuss it. The Thematic index groups connected readings without imposing a single system on the book. These indexes are linked in the digital editions.
References and textual conventions
References take the form I.3, meaning the First Century, meditation 3; V.10 is the last surviving meditation. Links lead to the corresponding meditation in the book. Century and meditation numbers remain the stable references across formats.
The underlying text is the Diotimos edition, which identifies Bertram Dobell's 1908 edition and its public-domain transcription as its copy-text and describes manuscript-based corrections. Its introduction, explanatory footnotes and other 2026 material are editorial apparatus, not Traherne's prose. An article that uses a modern explanatory note identifies it as such. Historical definitions here are contextual reading glosses; no independent dictionary, manuscript collation or scholarly edition is silently claimed as a source.
Short quotations retain the wording of the annotated edition. Its original capitalization can be rhetorically significant without making every capitalized word a technical term. Brackets and struck-through readings in the source belong to that edition's textual presentation and should not be confused with new words supplied by this lexicon. Biblical phrases and inherited images are discussed as Traherne deploys them; the articles do not turn an allusion into proof of a particular unmentioned source.