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 D
1–36 of 163
Daedalus and Hephaestus
Daedalus is the ancestor Socrates claims for his own family; the line is then traced to Hephaestus, son of Zeus.
Alcibiades I
Daemon and genius
“Daemon” and “genius” overlap in Burton’s accounts of spirits, but they do not carry one meaning everywhere.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Daimonic and divine
Daimonion is the neuter of the adjective daimonios, “daimonic”; with an article it can mean “the daimonic thing”.
Theages
Daimons interpretation and passage between earth and heaven
Daimōn names a divine being or power; its local rank must be determined from context.
Epinomis
Damon
Pericles’ continuing companion in the pursuit of wisdom, according to Alcibiades.
Alcibiades I
Dandyism, the Mirror, and the Toilette
The dandy is an exemplary manufactured self, answerable to an exacting standard of distinction.
Intimate Journals
Dante
Dante supplies the moving banner and pursuing crowd through which Guérin pictures the restlessness of inward life.
The Green Notebook
Darius and Zopyrus
Darius is the Persian king and Zopyrus the loyal servant of the classical exemplum retold here.
Centuries of Meditations
Dark blue
Kyanous denotes a dark blue color in these passages.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Dark eyes
The printed phrase means “the dark ones,” understood as eyes.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Darkness
Skotos is darkness, a condition in which sight or the manifestation of color becomes problematic.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Centuries of Meditations
David
David is the biblical king and the exemplary voice Traherne hears in the Psalms.
Centuries of Meditations
David and the Psalms
David and the Psalms supply several different speaking positions: the faithful oath-keeper, the recipient of lifelong divine teaching, the witness who will not be silenced and the assertion of enduring truth.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Dawn and twilight
The notebook most often approaches the day’s thresholds through morning, evening, sunset, and crépuscule.
The Green Notebook
Day
Hēmera can mean daylight or a day as a unit of time.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Centuries of Meditations
Day and night
The ordinary words for day and night acquire a cosmological role when the witnesses explain them through material regions or speak of their separation.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Day vision
These expressions mean by day or in daytime.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Death
Thanatos names death.
Stobaeus, Volume I · The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II+5 books
Death traditions
Teleutaō means to end one’s life or die; the remaining expressions identify a broken thigh, a noose, and the sea in different narratives.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Debt, Honfleur, and the Ordered Desk
Debt brings time, dependence, and humiliation into the vocabulary of inward life.
Intimate Journals
Decad
Dekas is ten, understood in the arithmetic excerpts as a complete numerical order.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Decent and base
Chrēstos means useful or serviceable and, of people, decent, respectable or good in conduct.
Hipparchus · The Lovers+1 book
Deception and sincerity
Exapatan means to deceive, delude or mislead; its prefixed form need not be translated with a separate intensifier every time.
Hipparchus · Lysis
Dedication and the reader being addressed
A dedication offers a work to someone.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Deed and work
Ergon can be a work, deed, task, function or achieved result; its plural erga need not designate physical objects.
Charmides · Stobaeus, Volume I+3 books
Deficiency
Endeēs means in need of; deficient in; lacking.
Lysis
Definition
The question “what do you say temperance is?”
Charmides · Alcibiades I+2 books
Definition, genus, difference, and mindless parts
Genus names the broader kind shared by species; differentia specifies what distinguishes a species within it.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Degree and mediation
Gradus is a rank or degree; medium is an intermediate, while extremum marks an extreme.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Deinomache
Alcibiades’ mother, named in a double parental address and in the imaginary comparison between Athenian and Persian wealth.
Alcibiades I
Deliberation and decision
Bouleuesthai means deliberating or taking counsel; context can give it the more suspicious sense of planning or plotting.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+1 book
Delicacy
Délicatesse names a fineness of expression or discrimination that can be mistaken for affected refinement.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Delight
Delight is pleasurable satisfaction in an object; transitively, to delight is to give such pleasure to someone else.
Centuries of Meditations
Delphi and Apollo
En Delphois means “at Delphi.”
Charmides · Alcibiades I+2 books
Delphic wreath
The adjective Delphikos associates the wreath or garlands with Delphi.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Demiurge and craftsman
Dēmiourgos is a maker or skilled craftsman.
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