Words · Meanings · Passages
Traherne Lexicon
A Reader’s Companion to Centuries of Meditations
471 entries · 0 subsidiary termsEntries
397–432 of 471
Skill
Skill is practical or informed competence.
Centuries of Meditations
Society
Society can mean companionship or association, not only the total structure of a nation.
Centuries of Meditations
Socinians
Socinians were adherents of the anti-Trinitarian theological tradition associated with Fausto Sozzini.
Centuries of Meditations
Socrates
Socrates is the Athenian philosopher represented as discovering how many goods for sale he does not need.
Centuries of Meditations
Solitude
Solitude is being alone, whether chosen or imposed.
Centuries of Meditations
Sorrow
Grief is sorrow at loss, frustration, injury, or offence.
Centuries of Meditations
Soul
The soul is the principle of the person’s life and spiritual activity.
Centuries of Meditations
Space
Space is the room in which bodies are situated and move.
Centuries of Meditations
Spectacle
A spectacle is something beheld, especially a striking or affecting scene.
Centuries of Meditations
Spirit
Spirit may name the Holy Spirit, a created soul, or an animating disposition.
Centuries of Meditations
Spring and source
A fountain is a spring or source from which something flows.
Centuries of Meditations
Star
Stars belong to the visible heavens.
Centuries of Meditations
Straitened and bowels
To be straitened is to be narrowed, cramped, or confined.
Centuries of Meditations
Strangeness
Strange can mean unfamiliar, remarkable, or foreign.
Centuries of Meditations
Study and learning
Study is deliberate, continued attention to a subject.
Centuries of Meditations
Stupid
Stupid in this passage means unperceiving, insensible, or lacking the activity of awareness.
Centuries of Meditations
Subsistence
Subsistence is a manner of existing or subsisting.
Centuries of Meditations
Sufficiency
Sufficiency is adequacy of provision or power: having enough, or being able, for a particular end.
Centuries of Meditations
Sun
The sun is a created source of light and warmth.
Centuries of Meditations
Superstition
Superstition is religious apprehension distorted by ignorance or misplaced fear.
Centuries of Meditations
Sweetness
Sweetness begins in taste but readily names gentleness, delight, and the felt goodness of a relation.
Centuries of Meditations
Sympathy
Sympathy is a correspondence of feeling or inclination.
Centuries of Meditations
Table
Table may mean an ordinary household furnishing, but a painter’s table is a prepared panel or ground upon which a picture is made.
Centuries of Meditations
Taste
Taste names bodily perception of flavour and the capacity to relish or judge an excellence.
Centuries of Meditations
Tears
Tears can express many kinds of sorrow.
Centuries of Meditations
Temper and mood
A humour is a disposition or bent of mind.
Centuries of Meditations
Temple
A temple is a place set apart for divine worship.
Centuries of Meditations
Temptation
Temptation is an inducement toward wrong and, through that inducement, a trial of faithfulness.
Centuries of Meditations
Tendering
Tendering means cherishing, regarding with care, or treating as precious.
Centuries of Meditations
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is gratitude expressed toward a giver.
Centuries of Meditations
Theater
A theatre is a space in which something is presented or enacted before spectators.
Centuries of Meditations
Theology
Divinity commonly means theology: knowledge of God and matters belonging to God.
Centuries of Meditations
Thirst
Thirst is a bodily need whose urgency makes it an image of desire.
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas à Kempis
Thomas à Kempis is the devotional writer cited for the exchange of all for all.
Centuries of Meditations
Thought
Thought can name an act of thinking or the conception formed through it.
Centuries of Meditations
Throne
A throne signifies the seat and exercise of sovereignty.
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.