Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A sculpture representing a standing nude young man, especially one produced in Greece before the fifth century BC.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a sculpture of a naked youth in Ancient Greece, the male equivalent of a kore.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, boy; see ker- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ionic Ancient Greek κοῦρος (kouros), variant of Ancient Greek κόρος (koros, "boy").

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Examples

  • It would be amazing if Gigerenzer's German pedestrians were calling faults with something approaching Braden's accuracy, or knowing — not guessing — that the kouros was a fake.

    The Moment of Truth? Halpern, Sue 2005

  • Ask Thomas Hoving how he knew, instantly, that the kouros was a fake, though, and he won't exactly be able to say. [

    The Moment of Truth? Halpern, Sue 2005

  • In the mid-1980s, the Getty Museum paid $7 million for a kouros, a small Greek sculpture, after extensive scientific testing determined the marble had come from a Greek quarry hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

    The Frida Fighters 2010

  • The kouros himself can reach a decision or determination of the truth solely through use of his logos.

    Presocratic Philosophy Curd, Patricia 2007

  • Although what the goddess tells the kouros has divine sanction (hers), that is not why he should accept it.

    Presocratic Philosophy Curd, Patricia 2007

  • Parmenides gives us a poem in Homeric hexameters, narrating the journey of a young man (a kouros, in Greek) who is taken to meet a goddess who promises to teach him “all things”

    Presocratic Philosophy Curd, Patricia 2007

  • The arguments of B8 demonstrate how what-is must be, and in applying these arguments as tests against any suggested basic entity in the Presocratic search for ultimate causes or principles, the kouros can determine whether or not a proposed theory is acceptable.

    Presocratic Philosophy Curd, Patricia 2007

  • Rather, the goddess gives the kouros the tools to acquire that knowledge himself:

    Presocratic Philosophy Curd, Patricia 2007

  • Dance in the grass, drink the heady wine of freedom, lay the young buff men with kouros bodies, and some of the young women as well.

    2nd March '06 demosthenes91 2006

  • The Getty have got one of those too . . . the so-called "Getty kouros", an impressive nude male statue, which is as likely to have been made in the twentieth century AD as in the sixth century BC.

    Ancient or modern? 2006

Comments

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  • Miss Grundy was quite at a loss

    To find a light comment to toss,

    So breathlessly viewed

    That arrogant nude,

    The fleshless, compelling kouros.

    September 19, 2018