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
109–144 of 233
Angle
Gōnia is an angle.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Animal
Animal names living creatures and can mark an aspect of human life contrasted with intelligence or spiritual participation.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Animal acuity and bodily size
Acies is the sharpness or directing edge of sight; the animal predicates distinguish skill, cunning, ingenuity, boldness, practical intelligence and discernment.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Animal and vegetal
Vegetals are plants; vegetal, also printed “vegetall,” describes their kind of life or the power of nutrition, growth and reproduction.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Animal faculties
Animal faculties are the powers associated with the brain and nerves: sensation, internal perceptual and mental activity, and movement.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Animal names
Animal names in love are forms of address as well as comparisons.
Intimate Journals
Animating and animal
Animal means a living being, potentially including humans and cosmic living wholes.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Animation, first light and regress
Animatum names what has soul imparted to it; inanime what lacks soul.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
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
Antimony
Antimony exemplifies the difference between a specified Stone and the universal one.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Antipodes
The antipodes are people or places on the opposite side of the globe.
Centuries of Meditations
Antiquated and Cronian
Kronikos means cronian; antiquated, as though from the age of Cronus.
Lysis
Antiquity
Antiquity names an interconnected civilization as well as a repertoire of texts and images.
The Green Notebook
Antisemitism and the Witness Tradition
CV contains an explicit antisemitic proposal to organize a conspiracy for the extermination of Jews.
Intimate Journals
Antithesis
Antithesis sets terms or thoughts in opposition.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Anxiety
Agōniaō means be anxious or in suspense; be in agony over an outcome.
Lysis
Apelles and the meadow
Apelles is the named painter; pratum is a meadow, tabula a panel, pingere painting, and exprimere representing or reproducing.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Aphorism and maxim
Maxime is a compact, memorable formulation.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is a divine name that the fragments place directly within the vocabulary of Love.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Aphrodite Hermes and the names of the solar companions
Heōsphoros means “Dawn-bringer”; hesperos belongs to evening and here names the Evening Star.
Epinomis
Apocalypsis of Magnesia
The Apocalypsis is the first of two great wonder-books Khunrath says he has in hand.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Apollo
Apollo is a divine name used at different levels of the reported cosmology.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Apophthegm
The question-and-answer markers “being asked” and “he said” frame compact attributed sayings.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Apostasy
Apostasy is a falling away or abandonment.
Centuries of Meditations
Apostrophe and changes of tense
Apostrophe addresses someone or something beyond the immediate course of narration: a listener, an absent person, God, a remembered landscape or an abstraction.
René
Apparent sun
Φαινόμενον is what appears or is seen; ἀνταύγεια is reflected radiance.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Appearance and seeming
Phainomai means appear; seem; become apparent.
Lysis
Appearance in reflection
Emphasis is an appearance produced or presented in another medium.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Appellation
Prosēgoria is a designation or appellation.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Appetite
Appétit binds bodily life to desire, but the notebooks also use it to distinguish kinds of intellectual and moral receptivity.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations+4 books
Appetitive deficiency
Elleipsis is lack or deficiency; the participle means what is lacking or deficient.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Apples
The edition renders the μῆλα of B80 as apples and their adjective as “full of sap.”
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Appointed turns
The phrase “in turn” is built from meros, a part or share; B 26 also invokes aisē, an allotted portion.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Apprehension
Katalēpsis is a grasp or apprehension.
Stobaeus, Volume I · The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II+2 books
Aqua Fortis
Aqua fortis occurs adjectivally in the description of supposed metallic solutions that leave coloured marks on wood or skin.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
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