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 N
1–36 of 61
Nails
Onyches are nails or claws; the notice refers to animals generally.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Naïveté
Naïveté belongs to unguarded natural expression and can be praiseworthy without being reflective, precise or immune to imitation.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · The Green Notebook
Nakedness
Nakedness is the absence of clothing.
Centuries of Meditations
Name
Onoma is a name, onomazein to name, and prosagoreuein to address or call someone.
Theages · Stobaeus, Volume I+1 book
Names of unintelligence
The list moves from blunt terms for stupidity or stupefaction to descriptions that can sound charitable or complimentary: idiot, thunderstruck, great-souled, simple, innocent, inexperienced and tongue-tied.
Alcibiades II
Naming and convention
Onomazetai means is named; kaleousi means they call.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Naming and defining
Appellare, vocare, nominare and nuncupare name or call something; they do not invariably announce a strict definition.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Naming by cause
Tribuere a name is to attribute it; appellationes are designations.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Nation
Nation and peuple can denote collective human communities rather than a single state apparatus.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Natural craft and human craft
Nature's craft supplies the catholic subject; human craft prepares it toward the Stone.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Natural desire, possible good, and Olympiodorus
Natural desire is presented as directed toward a good appropriate to the being that desires.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Natural hymn
The adjective “natural” modifies hymns that expound a deity’s nature through the physical world.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Natural motion
Natural motion enters the parenthesis describing Nature's continuing work after the world's first creation.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Natural motion and natural place
Motus naturalis is a motion fitting a thing’s natural order; locus naturalis its proper place.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Natural origin
Natural origin covers several modes of coming-to-be that Khunrath carefully distinguishes: divine creation of first matter, initial specification into kinds, and subsequent generation or propagation.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Natural philosopher
Physiologos denotes one who gives an account of nature; physikos and Latin physicus identify a natural philosopher.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Natural place
Τόποι are places; ὡρισμένοι τόποι are determined or bounded places.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Natural priority
The phrase means prior by nature.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Natural species and succession
Species naturalis names a natural kind or determining form; singula its individual instances.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Naturalness
Naturel can name an artistic naturalness, a disposition or the substantive “natural.” Its value depends on the kind of nature expressed; it does not invariably praise the first, easiest or least cultivated expression.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Nature
Physis means nature; in the dative φύσει, by nature or naturally.
Lysis · Stobaeus, Volume I+7 books
Nature-conforming
Naturgemeß means in agreement with Nature, her course, and her possibilities.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Nature’s manner
Nature's stylus is her manner of proceeding.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Navel
Omphalos is the navel and can refer to the umbilical connection in embryological contexts.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Nearness, sight, and touch
Oikia can mean a house, whereas oikēma is a room or dwelling-space; their contrast here requires “house” and “room”.
Theages
Necessary predication and the fire objection
Rotunditas is roundness; lignum wood; calere being hot.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Necessity
Anankē means necessity or constraint; anankaion, necessary.
Charmides · Hipparchus+7 books
Neck
Auchēn is the neck.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Need
Deomai means be in need of; require something or need to do something.
Lysis · The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II+1 book
Need and sufficiency
Egere and indigere mean needing; indigentia need or lack; sufficere being enough for a purpose; sufficientia adequacy.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Need and utility
Chreia means use; need or service that something supplies.
Lysis · Stobaeus, Volume I
Neglected visible gods fitting honors and religious reform
Timē is honor or an honored share; prosēkōn describes what belongs or is fitting.
Epinomis
Neither good nor bad
Mēte agathon mēte kakon means neither good nor bad.
Lysis
Nerves and fibers
Nerves and fibers belong to Joubert’s historical physiology and to his images of strings, tension, and resonance.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Nestis
Nestis is the fourth divine name in B 6.
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Nests
A nest is a made or chosen dwelling associated with reproduction and shelter.
The Green Notebook
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