Words · Meanings · Passages
Lexicon
Terms from the books in the Diotimos library, with definitions, translation notes, and links to their passages.
4,297 entries across 21 collectionsTerms beginning with A
37–72 of 233
Adust
Adust means scorched or burnt through excessive heat; adustion is the process of scorching.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Advantage
Τὰ συμφέροντα is the substantivized participial expression for advantageous things or courses: what benefits those concerned, what works to their advantage.
Alcibiades I · Stobaeus, Volume I
Adventitious
Adventitious means acquired, added from outside, or arising from an additional cause, in contrast with what belongs to a thing by birth or nature.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Advice and greeting
Συμβουλή is advice, and συμβουλεύειν is to give it; πρόσρησις and πρόσρημα are a greeting, and χαῖρε, "rejoice", was the everyday Greek one.
Charmides
Advice and oratory
The symboul- family concerns advising, advice and an adviser; rhētōr is a public speaker or orator, and rhētorikos describes rhetorical ability.
Alcibiades II
Aegisthus, Peleus, Periander, Archelaus, and Hippias
These are five personal names, not interchangeable titles of office.
Theages
Aesop
Aesop is named as the source of the fox-and-lion fable used to picture the one-way movement of money into Sparta.
Alcibiades I
Aesthetic grace
In aesthetic passages, grâce is an attractive manner, movement or tempering quality distinguishable from beauty itself.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Aether
Aithēr names a heavenly or upper region and, in some physical accounts, a special celestial substance.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I+1 book
Affect
Affectus is an inclination or engagement, not necessarily a passing emotion.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Affectation
Affectation concerns a strained, displayed or misplaced expression.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Affection
Phileō means love; feel affection for; be attached to.
Lysis · Stobaeus, Volume I+5 books
Affection
Storgē is affection or love.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
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
Age and maturity
Παῖς is a child or boy, a son, and in address a slave; μειράκιον a lad past childhood; νεανίσκος and νεανίας a young man; ἡλικία age, and ἐν ἡλικίᾳ the age of maturity; ἡλικιῶται are those of one's own age.
Charmides · Lysis+1 book
Aggregation
Synkrisis is a bringing together or combination.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Aging
Gēraskein is to grow old.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Aging and old age
Gēras means old age; ageing.
Lysis · The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Agreement and concession
Ὁμολογεῖν is to say the same thing as another, to agree or to admit, and ὁμολογία is the agreement made; συγχωρεῖν is to move together and make room, and so to give way, to concede or grant.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+8 books
Agreement as evidence
Ὁμολογεῖν is agreeing, literally saying the same thing; διαφέρεσθαι is disagreeing; a τεκμήριον is a piece of evidence from which a conclusion is drawn.
Alcibiades I
Agrippa
Agrippa is cited in two primary marginal contexts: the Great Stone's universal operations and the theological claim about Azazel.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Agrippa and Trithemius
Agrippa and Trithemius are named together in a marginal cross-reference beside the universal operations of the Great Stone.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Aidoneus
Aidōneus is the divine name printed in the four-root announcement, familiar as a form associated with Hades.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Air
Aēr names air as a constituent of the physical world.
Stobaeus, Volume I · The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II+4 books
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 · Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Alcibiades
The young Athenian addressed by Socrates; the title-name is also a recurrent object of definition.
Alcibiades I · Alcibiades II
Alcmaeon
Alcmaeon is named beside Orestes as a figure said to have committed the same act toward his mother.
Alcibiades II
Alexander the Great
The Macedonian conqueror enters as a proverbial figure of ambition that has exhausted one world and desires others.
Centuries of Meditations
Alien tunic of flesh
Chitōn is a tunic, here made of flesh.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Alienating
Exagriainō means make wild, alienate, provoke an unsociable response.
Lysis
All and everything
“All” is Traherne's recurring universal term.
Centuries of Meditations · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
All some and none
Πᾶς means all or every; ἅπας is an inclusive or emphatic all, frequently “every one” in this edition.
Hipparchus
Allegory
Allegory receives an architectural image: it inhabits a diaphanous palace.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Allegory and parable
A parable is a story or figurative utterance that discloses a truth through another subject.
Centuries of Meditations
Allotment
Moira is a portion or allotted share and can designate one’s fate.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Books in the Lexicon
October 2026
Plato’s Alcibiades I Lexicon
Alcibiades I · Plato
176 entries · 701 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Alcibiades II Lexicon
Alcibiades II · Plato
94 entries · 290 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Traherne Lexicon
Centuries of Meditations · Thomas Traherne
471 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Charmides Lexicon
Charmides · Plato
173 entries · 777 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Empedocles Lexicon
Empedocles, Volumes I–II · Empedocles of Acragas
490 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Epinomis Lexicon
Epinomis · Plato
77 entries · 1,061 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Flatland Literary Lexicon
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions · Edwin A. Abbott
85 entries · 476 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Khunrath Lexicon
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum · Heinrich Khunrath
326 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Hipparchus Lexicon
Hipparchus · Plato
90 entries · 291 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Baudelaire Literary Lexicon
Intimate Journals · Charles Baudelaire
80 entries · 323 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Lysis Lexicon
Lysis · Plato
239 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I Lexicon
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Marsilio Ficino
231 entries · 1,313 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II Lexicon
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II · Marsilio Ficino
148 entries · 1,398 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Minos Lexicon
Minos · Plato
54 entries · 506 subsidiary terms
October 2026
René Literary Lexicon
René · François-René de Chateaubriand
81 entries · 275 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Stobaeus Lexicon
Stobaeus, Volume I · John Stobaeus
610 entries · 85 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy Lexicon
The Anatomy of Melancholy · Robert Burton
103 entries · 3,864 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Guérin Lexicon
The Green Notebook · Maurice de Guérin
165 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Lovers Lexicon
The Lovers · Plato
83 entries · 361 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Joubert Lexicon
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Joseph Joubert
459 entries · 110 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Theages Lexicon
Theages · Plato
62 entries · 510 subsidiary terms