Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Greek antiquity, a race at certain festivals, in which the runners carried lighted torches, the prize being awarded to the contestant who first reached the goal with his torch still burning.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • A torch-race, of sorts, with batons passed in all directions, from the collector to the student, the casual reader to the obsessive.

    June 2008 2008

  • A torch-race, of sorts, with batons passed in all directions, from the collector to the student, the casual reader to the obsessive.

    Gently Used 2008

  • The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene — a festival in honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening.

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honor of the goddess which will take place in the evening?

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • The manner in which the conversation has arisen is described as follows: — Socrates and his companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising them not only the torch-race, but the pleasure of conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction.

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • Of the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or talked, as in the

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • The first then rides and delivers the message with which he is charged to the second, and the second to the third; and after that it goes through them handed from one to the other,1295 as in the torch-race among the Hellenes, which they perform for Hephaistos.

    The History of Herodotus Herodotus 2003

  • Athenians, when their affairs had been now prosperously settled, established under the Acropolis a temple of Pan; and in consequence of this message they propitiate him with sacrifice offered every year and with a torch-race.

    The History of Herodotus Herodotus 2003

  • Pisistratus, it is stated, was similarly attached to one Charmus; he it was who dedicated the figure of Love in the Academy, where the runners in the sacred torch-race light their torches.

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003

  • Motions that are not the same either specifically or generically may, it is true, be consecutive (e.g. a man may run and then at once fall ill of a fever), and again, in the torch-race we have consecutive but not continuous locomotion: for according to our definition there can be continuity only when the ends of the two things are one.

    Physics Aristotle 2002

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