Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One of a number of early Christian ascetics who lived unsheltered on the tops of high pillars.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In ecclesiastical history, one of a class of solitary ascetics who passed the greater part of their lives unsheltered on the top of high columns or pillars. This mode of mortification was practised among the monks of the East from the fifth to the eleventh century. The most celebrated was St. Simeon the Stylite, who lived in the fifth century. Also called
pillar-saint .
Wiktionary
- n. Christianity, historical A Christian ascetic in ancient times who lived alone on top of a tall pillar.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect of anchorites in the early church, who lived on the tops of pillars for the exercise of their patience; -- called also
pillarist andpillar saint .
WordNet 3.0
- n. an early Christian ascetic who lived on top of high pillars
Etymologies
- From Ecclesiastical Greek στυλίτης (stulites), from Ancient Greek στῦλος (stulos, "pillar"). (Wiktionary)
- Late Greek stūlītēs, from Greek stūlos, pillar; see stā- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“There was a time a "stylite" was a saint who lived atop a pillar or a post in some forsaken desert.”
“He's said to be as rich as Croesus and as reclusive as a stylite, and that's all anyone knows of him.”
“To choose a stone perch in center of the sea where you will stay, a stylite, unaffected”
“I'm not yet some fanatic stylite, sitting on a pillar, waiting for the snap of the seventh seal, so I am somewhat familiar with the world around me.”
“My desire to go and hear Berma received a fresh stimulus which enabled me to await the coming of the matinée with impatience and with joy; having gone to take up, in front of the column on which the playbills were, my daily station, as excruciating, of late, as that of a stylite saint, I had seen there, still moist and wrinkled, the complete bill of”
“It, indeed, sent the stylite to his pillar, the hermit to the wilderness, the ascetic to the scourge and hair-cloth shirt; but it also led the warrior to the Holy Land, the beggar to the castle-hearth, and the workman to the building of the”
“At the end of the rite, however, the patriarch ascended to give Holy Communion to the stylite and to receive it from him.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI
“Old Cotta, who was inspecting the canals and the navigation of the Nile, had many times expressed a desire to see the stylite and the new city, to which the name of Stylopolis had been given.”
“Soon the report of this extraordinary existence spread from village to village, and the labourers of the valley came on Sundays, with their wives and children, to look at the stylite.”
“He highly approved of the extraordinary conduct of the stylite, and the heads of the Libyan Church followed, in the absence of Athanasius, the opinion of the Patriarch.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘stylite’.
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phrontistery-s
from phrontistery.info
sabaton, sabbatarian, sabbulonarium, sabelline, sabin, sable, sabliere, sabot, sabretache, sabulous, saburration, saccade and 1593 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Columns & Rows
Wordnik is organized as columns.
What a row!peripteral, peristyle, orthostichy, pseudo-dipteral, ployment, indentation, plinth, stylobate, balustrade, chine, trompe, telamon and 75 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Words of Standing
steed, stool, estancia, stage, stance, staunch, stanch, stanchion, stanza, stative, stator, stay and 180 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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spamdad's Words
lambic, weizenbock, bock, zymurgy, vade mecum, quotidian, sesquipedalian, eremite, sphragis, privation, aegis, sui generis and 275 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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Style
A family of terms containing the string *styl that suggest a sense of something columnar or pointed.
Words containing styl- denoting a mode of expression or fashion are excluded from t...monimostylic, streptostylic, styloid, hypostyle, stylet, stylographic, stylobate, peristyle, stylites, metrostyle, peristylium, anastylosis and 32 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for stylite.
chained_bear "...yet he had always despised the stylite or even hair-shirt kind of asceticism..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Hundred Days, 55 Mar 20, 2008