Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or possessing intellectual or spiritual knowledge.
- adj. Of or relating to Gnosticism.
- n. A believer in Gnosticism.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having knowledge; possessing mystic or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things.
- Worldly-wise; knowing; clever or smart.
- [capitalized] Pertaining to the Gnostics or to Gnosticism; cabalistic; theosophic.
- n. A member of one of certain rationalistic sects which arose in the Christian church in the first century, flourished in the second, and had almost entirely disappeared by the sixth. The Gnostics held that knowledge rather than faith was the road to heaven, and professed to have a peculiar knowledge of religious mysteries. They rejected the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and attempted to combine their teachings with those of the Greek and Oriental philosophies and religions. They held that God was the unknowable and the unapproachable; that from him proceeded, by emanation, subordinate deities termed eons, from whom again proceeded other still inferior spirits. The Gnostics were in general agreed in believing in the principles of dualism and Docetism and in the existence of a demiurge or world-creator. Christ they regarded as a superior eon, who had descended from the Infinite God in order to subdue the god or eon of this world. Their chief seats were in Syria and Egypt, but their doctrines were taught everywhere, and at an early date they separated into a variety of sects.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of, or relating to, intellectual or spiritual knowledge
- adj. Of, or relating to Gnosticism
- n. A believer in Gnosticism
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Old Slang Knowing; wise; shrewd.
- adj. (Eccl. Hist.) Of or pertaining to Gnosticism or its adherents.
- n. (Eccl. Hist.) One of the so-called philosophers in the first ages of Christianity, who claimed a true philosophical interpretation of the Christian religion. Their system combined Oriental theology and Greek philosophy with the doctrines of Christianity. They held that all natures, intelligible, intellectual, and material, are derived from the Deity by successive emanations, which they called
Eons .
WordNet 3.0
- adj. possessing intellectual or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things
- adj. of or relating to Gnosticism
- n. an advocate of Gnosticism
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek γνωστικός (gnōstikos, "relating to knowledge"), from γνωστός (gnōstos, "known"), from γιγνώσκω (gignōskō, "I know"). (Wiktionary)
- Late Latin Gnōsticus, a Gnostic, from Late Greek Gnōstikos, from Greek gnōstikos, concerning knowledge, from gnōsis, knowledge; see gnosis. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Yet a clue as to why this should be so lies in the fact that the early Church Fathers regarded the word Gnostic as being synonymous with ‘heretic’—and Simon was a Gnostic although, not, as they believed, the founder of Gnosticism.”
“April DeConick on The Forbidden Gospels blog muses on a substitute for the term Gnostic - transtheism or supratheism, follows up her discussion and settles on transtheism.”
“It would be like calling someone a spic or a Hebe—the label Gnostic was made up by the same people who rejected them.”
“There is not the faintest sign that such words have any reference to what we call Gnostic terms.”
“Teacher, and supplies converts with practical precepts for their guidance; whilst in the Stromata, or Miscellanies, we have a description of what he calls the Gnostic or perfect Christian.”
The Ancient Church Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution
“He also remains adamantly against what he calls Gnostic thinkers (prophets) and the movements that follow them.”
“MEYER: The word "Gnostic" comes from the Greek "gnosis," which means knowledge, but it's not the kind of knowledge that you simply get out of books, but, rather, it is mystical knowledge.”
“A small team aboard the ship Gnostic, is used to alter any uneventful outcome by playing off the Lild's religious foundations.”
REVIEW: The New Space Opera 2 edited by Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan
“Haven, would frequently say to me that the great disaster of Kabbalah was its Neoplatonic scheme or myth of emanation — the sephirot — and that he greatly preferred what he called the Gnostic kabbalah of the early Merkavah mystics, which he thought had been renewed by Moses Cordovero, who was the teacher of”
“And so, coming down through the centuries, since the Christian time, you will find the word Gnostic used every now and again, but more often the term "Theosophist" and”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Gnostic’.
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2053 more...
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New to Me
anodyne, salient, ecumenical, salubrious, invective, incendiary, colophon, stola, druthers, syllogism, geodesic, quant and 16 more...
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What David Foster Wallace circled in ...
ablative, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, ailanthus, aleatory, alfresco, algolagnia and 474 more...
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Cellar Door
It's the way the letters combine to form an beautiful whole and the way its sound tickles the ear.
capricious, sigh, jest, psyche, elf, wither, languish, wane, fade, caustic, pithy, epicene and 121 more...
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Some good words
Interregnum, misology, misoneism, Orthogonal, Perspicacity, clinquant, retrodict, Shandygaff, mode, indwell, inhere, aseity and 51 more...
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