periegesis

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

  • noun a description of an area, territory

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  • noun A progress through or around; especially, a formal progress, or a journey in state; a traveling through anything.

Examples

  • One need only refer to the Hellados periegesis of Pausanias, or glance through the codices collected by Photius in his "Bibliotheca", to recognize what great importance was attached to the reports of miracles in antiquity by both the educated and uneducated.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy

  • As Perrottet explains with the easy grace of a fine amateur classicist, the Pax Romana imposed across the Mediterranean in the first two centuries of the Christian era put an end to civil unrest and made possible for the first time the concept of tourism for the leisured class, and with it all the accoutrements still known in the travel industry: peregrinatores, the tourists themselves; mystagogi, the nonsense-spouting guides; periegesis, the guidebooks to out-of-the-way places; unacceptable beds and meals that hurried tourists have no time to complain about; souvenir stalls selling dubious replicas; and guest registries, usually in the form of graffiti in the most inappropriate places.

    Books: On Tour with the Ancients

Note

The word 'periegesis' comes from a Greek word meaning "showing around").