Pandemic

From Ancient Greek Ἀφροδίτη Πάνδημος (Aphrodítē Pándēmos, “Aphrodite Pandemos”), from πάνδημος (pándēmos, “of or belonging to all the people, public”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). See further at pandemic (etymology 1).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pænˈdɛmɪk/

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• Rhymes: -ɛmɪk
• Hyphenation: Pan‧dem‧ic

Pandemic (not comparable)

1. (Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Of Aphrodite Pandemos, the earthly aspect of the Greek goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus, as contrasted with the heavenly aspect known as Aphrodite Urania: earthly, physical, sensual.

   Synonym: Pandemian

   Antonyms: heavenly, spiritual, Uranian

   • a. 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Banquet. Translated from Plato.”, in Richard Herne Shepherd, editor, The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: From the Original Editions In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, , published 1888, →OCLC, pages 64 and 67:

     [page 64] The Love, therefore, which attends upon Venus Pandemos is, in truth, common to the vulgar, and presides over transient and fortuitous connexions, and is worshipped by the least excellent of mankind. The votaries of this deity seek the body rather than the soul, and the ignorant rather than the wise, disdaining all that is honourable and lovely, and considering how they shall best satisfy their sensual necessities. […] [page 67] That Pandemic lover who loves rather the body than the soul is worthless, nor can be constant and consistent, since he has placed his affections on that which has no stability.

   • 1840 January–June, “Shelley’s Translation of ‘The Banquet’ of Plato”, in The Monthly Chronicle; a National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume V, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, , →OCLC, pages 316–317:

     The same distinction between an Uranian and a Pandemic Venus runs, as all those who have any acquaintance with the sculptures of the Greeks know, through their whole art. […] The latter [the Capitoline Venus] is the true Pandemic Venus, the perfect type of voluptuousness, soulless, animal beauty,— […]

   • 1852 January – 1853 April, Charles Kingsley, Jun., “She Stoops to Conquer”, in Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face. , volume II, London: John W Parker and Son, , published 1853, →OCLC, page 109:

     That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose symbol is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty and chastity: not of that baser Pandemic one.

   • 1967, Frank Kermode, “World Without End or Beginning”, in The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (The Mary Flexner Lectures on the Humanities; 1965), New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC; new edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2000, →ISBN, page 76:

     The meeting of Venus with Phoebe distinguishes her roles: the business of Venus in her pandemic form is to ensure the immortality of the kinds. Her Garden has the voluptuousness necessary to ensure this, and this is 'the first seminarie / Of all things that are borne to live and die / According to their kindes.' [Quoting from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.]

   • 1969, Gerhard Joseph, “From Fatal Goddess to a God of Love”, in Tennysonian Love: The Strange Diagonal, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, →OCLC, footnote 8, page 141:

     For the complicated history of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite of whom the Venus genetrix, the creative and vivifying force of nature, and Venus, the goddess of erotic passion, are Roman versions, see "Aphrodite" and "Venus" in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, […] . [Allen] Tate sees the attempt to reconcile the claims of the Uranian and Pandemic Aphrodite as the lifelong concern of [John] Keats.

   • 2015, Nora Clark, “Aphrodite and Venus: Myth Timeless and Temporal”, in Aphrodite and Venus in Myth and Mimesis, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 30:

     The Symposium [of Plato] presents strong and varied opinions on Aphrodite. Aristodemus reports Pausanias's speech on the Homeric and Hesiodic versions of the goddess's origins, and differentiates between the two loves and the two Aphrodites—the Pandemic one, daughter of Zeus, and the heavenly Uranic Aphrodite.

• pandemic (rare)