Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Universal wisdom or knowledge.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare Universal wisdom; esp., a system of universal knowledge proposed by Comenius (1592 -- 1671), a Moravian educator.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Universal (complete) knowledge or a system of such universal knowledge.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Originally from Greek pan, all, and -sophy, wisdom or knowledge, then from Latin pansophia to English.
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Examples
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German philosophers made ready to seize upon it with huge mental biceps and labor to incorporate it beneficently into the Teuton pansophy.
Villa Elsa A Story of German Family Life Stuart Oliver Henry 1906
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Next in importance to pansophy or encyclopædism, and closely connected with it, is the principle that a knowledge of words and of things should go hand in hand.
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 John [Editor] Rudd 1885
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I can just picture Coldplay fans all around the world twistin ` and turnin ` the CD cover ` bout and puttin ` it under a magnifying glass just to glean an inner sanctum of pansophy from the cardboard.
qms commented on the word pansophy
It's Ernest's most intimate fantasy,
The acme of lexical vanity,
To know every word
The ear's ever heard
And rule in the kingdom of pansophy.
Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit
October 15, 2015