Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That from which supplies are drawn; a storehouse; a magazine; a repository.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective rare Of or pertaining to preparation.
  • noun That from which supplies are drawn; a storehouse; a magazine; a repository.

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

  • noun arithmetic A device described in Napier's treatise Rabdologiæ, consisting of a large set of strips used to multiply multi-digit numbers more easily than Napier’s bones.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin promptuarium, storehouse

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word promptuary.

Examples

  • Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical quality, than with a lion.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical quality, than with a lion.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical quality, than with a lion.

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 1 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

  • Although promptory has not yet found its way into Webster's Third (promptuary, a poorer-sounding variant suggestive of a mortuary, has), it is a worthy and useful addition to the language; for example, good use of it was made in a recent VERBATIM book review [VII, 3, 12].

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VIII No 3 1981

  • They are stored up in a promptuary, in the seventh of the heavens, whence they are drawn as they are needed for human body after human body. [

    The Legends of the Jews — Volume 1 Louis Ginzberg 1913

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Terrain and the temperatures vary

    Explorers, though, knew what to carry.

    A well-equipped chap

    Expanding the map

    Kept booze in the long promptuary.

    March 31, 2018