Words · Meanings · Passages
Traherne Lexicon
A Reader’s Companion to Centuries of Meditations
471 entries · 0 subsidiary termsEntries
433–468 of 471
Time
Time names the succession through which created events occur.
Centuries of Meditations
Trade
Trade can mean a craft or occupation as well as buying and selling.
Centuries of Meditations
Treasure
A treasure is something precious, possessed or available for possession.
Centuries of Meditations
Tree
A tree is a created living thing.
Centuries of Meditations
Trinity
Trinity names the Christian confession of one God in three persons.
Centuries of Meditations
Trust
Trust is reliance placed in something expected to sustain or protect.
Centuries of Meditations
Truth
Truth can name a true proposition, the reality disclosed by it, or fidelity to what is.
Centuries of Meditations
Unchanging
Immutability is unchangeableness.
Centuries of Meditations
Understanding
Understanding names a mental power and its exercised apprehension of things.
Centuries of Meditations
Union
Union is a joining of what can be distinguished.
Centuries of Meditations
Unity
Unity can mean oneness of being or agreement among several persons.
Centuries of Meditations
Unlimited
Illimited means not bounded or circumscribed.
Centuries of Meditations
Unsuppose
To unsuppose is to suppose something away, imagining that it does not exist.
Centuries of Meditations
Use
Use is what something does or how it is employed toward an end.
Centuries of Meditations
Value
Value is worth, and to value something is to estimate or esteem it.
Centuries of Meditations
Vanity
Vanity can mean emptiness and futility, not only excessive pride in appearance.
Centuries of Meditations
Variety
Variety is difference within an abundance.
Centuries of Meditations
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC) was a Roman scholar.
Centuries of Meditations
Vice
Vice is a settled or characteristic form of wrongdoing.
Centuries of Meditations
Vice and wickedness
Wickedness is a strong name for moral evil.
Centuries of Meditations
Virtue
Virtue ordinarily names an excellence of character or action.
Centuries of Meditations
Vision
Vision may name a prophetic scene, ordinary seeing, or the blessed apprehension associated with heaven.
Centuries of Meditations
War
War retains its literal sense of armed conflict even where the language of struggle is extended to the resistance of sin.
Centuries of Meditations
Water
Water is a common necessity whose availability can hide its worth.
Centuries of Meditations
Wealth
Riches are abundant possessions or valuable goods.
Centuries of Meditations
Whole
Whole names something in its completeness.
Centuries of Meditations
Will
Will names a person’s directed desire or choice, and the power by which it is exercised.
Centuries of Meditations
Wine
Wine is both a bodily refreshment and an image through which invisible relations become intelligible.
Centuries of Meditations
Wisdom
Wisdom is more than possession of information.
Centuries of Meditations
Wist
Wist is an old past-tense form meaning knew.
Centuries of Meditations
Witness
A witness can be someone who sees a reality or someone whose testimony makes it known.
Centuries of Meditations
Wonder
Wonder is both astonishment and the remarkable thing that provokes it.
Centuries of Meditations
Word
Word can mean ordinary speech or a meaningful expression, while the Word of God can designate Scripture or the divine agency of creation.
Centuries of Meditations
World
World can name the visible heavens and earth, the more comprehensive created order, or the corrupt system of human customs.
Centuries of Meditations
World and universe
The universe names the whole created order considered together.
Centuries of Meditations
World-soul
World-soul is a conventional name for the conception of the cosmos as a living whole informed by soul.
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.