mathesis

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman mathesis, Middle French mathesie, and their source, Late Latin mathesis (“astrology, liberal arts, science”), from Ancient Greek μάθησις (máthēsis, “learning”), from the same base as μανθάνω (manthánō, “I learn”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /məˈθiːsɪs/, /ˈmaθəsɪs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

mathesis (countable and uncountable, plural matheses)

1. (now rare) Mental calculation or discipline; science, especially mathematical learning.
   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon:

     Forget the Boys, forget your loyalties to your Dead, first of all to Rebekah, for she, they, are but distractions, temporal, flesh, ever attempting to drag the Uranian Devotee back down out of his realm of pure Mathesis, of that which abides.

2. The science of establishing a systematic order for things. (After Foucault.)
   • 1997, Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 69 (Totem Books, Icon Books; →ISBN

     I’m using 'mathesis' — a universal science of measurement and order

Translations

Anagrams

• Mathises, atheisms

Latin

Etymology

From the Ancient Greek μάθησις (máthēsis).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /maˈtʰeː.sis/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /maˈte.sis/,

Noun

mathēsis f (genitive mathēsis or mathēseōs or mathēsios); third declension

(Late Latin)

1. (in general) the action of learning, knowledge, science
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Prudentius to this entry?)
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Sidonius Apollinaris to this entry?)
   1. (in particular) mathematics, mathesis
      • (Can we find and add a quotation of Cassiodorus to this entry?)
      • (Can we find and add a quotation of Fabius Planciades Fulgentius to this entry?)
   2. (in particular) astrology
      • (Can we find and add a quotation of Aelius Spartianus to this entry?)
      • (Can we find and add a quotation of Julius Firmicus Maternus to this entry?)
      • (Can we find and add a quotation of Prudentius to this entry?)

Declension

Third-declension noun (Greek-type, i-stem, i-stem).

¹Found sometimes in Medieval and New Latin.

References

• “măthēsis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• mathesis in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• măthēsis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 954/2.