enchiridion

See also: ἐγχειρίδιον

English

Etymology

Either via Latin enchīridion or directly, from Ancient Greek ἐγχειρίδιον (enkheirídion, “handbook, manual”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + -ίδιον (-ídion).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɛn.kaɪˈɹɪ.dɪ.ən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: en‧chi‧ri‧di‧on
• Rhymes: -ɪdiən

Noun

enchiridion (plural enchiridions or enchiridia)

1. (archaic, uncommon) A handbook or manual.

   the Enchiridion of Erasmus

   • 1843 October 16, Henry David Thoreau, “To Mrs. Emerson”, in F[ranklin] B[enjamin] Sanborn, editor, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Familiar Letters, volume VI (Familiar Letters), Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin and Company, published 1906, →OCLC, page 112:

     He [Francis Quarles] wrote long poems, almost epics for length, about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson, and Solomon, interspersed with meditations after a quite original plan,—Shepherd's Oracles, Comedies, Romances, Fancies, and Meditations,—the quintessence of meditation, —and Enchiridions of Meditation all divine, —and what he calls his Morning Muse; besides prose works as curious as the rest.

   • 1920, Leonard Huxley, Thomas Henry Huxley: A Character Sketch‎^[1]:

     Sartor Resartus was for many years his Enchiridion (he says), while the translations from the German, the references to German literature and philosophy, fired him to read the originals.

   • 1921, Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow‎^[2], London: Chatto & Windus:

     To counteract these degrading effects he advised that […] the walls of the chamber should be lined with bookshelves containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs of Solomon, Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’, the apophthegms of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the ‘Enchiridion’ of Erasmus, and all other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the nobility of the human soul.

   • 2009, Thomas Keymer, The Cambridge Companion to Laurence Sterne, page 27:

     If they queried the predictabilities and completions of story, Swift and Sterne were yet more suspicious of the totalisations and regularities of imposed rules, institutes, universal systems, cyclopaedias and enchiridions.

Translations

Translations

• German: Enchiridion n
• Spanish: enquiridión (es) m

Further reading

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “enchiridion”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἐγχειρίδιον (enkheirídion).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ɛŋ.kʰiːˈrɪ.di.ɔn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [eŋ.kiˈriː.di.on]

Noun

enchīridion n (genitive enchīridiī); second declension

1. a manual

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter, Greek-type).

	singular	plural
nominative	enchīridion	enchīridia
genitive	enchīridiī	enchīridiōrum
dative	enchīridiō	enchīridiīs
accusative	enchīridion	enchīridia
ablative	enchīridiō	enchīridiīs
vocative	enchīridion	enchīridia

References

• “enchiridion”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• enchiridion in Ramminger, Johann (16 July 2016 (last accessed)), Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[3], pre-publication website, 2005-2016