Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Plural of arcanum.

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

  • noun Plural form of arcanum.
  • noun Specialized knowledge that is mysterious to the uninitiated.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature.

    The Hidden Power And Other Papers upon Mental Science 1881

  • 'With a couple of minor contemporary exceptions, there are seventy-eight cards in a standard Tarot pack, divided into the major and the minor arcana - arcana is the Latin word for "secrets".

    Sepulchre Mosse, Kate 2007

  • Nor could it ever forgive him for rendering ludicrous supposed panaceas, the so-called arcana (mumia, ceratum humanum, unicornu).

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 11: New Mexico-Philip 1840-1916 1913

  • Each persona belongs to an arcana which is based on tarot cards.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Josh Bycer 2009

  • To be sure, with the licences of interpretation, which the Fathers of the first three or four centuries allowed themselves, and with the 'arcana' of evolution by word, letter, allegory, yea, punning, which they applied to detached sentences or single phrases of Holy Writ, it would not be easy to imagine a position which they could not 'shew in Scripture.'

    The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Henry Nelson Coleridge 1820

  • Kairos is the kind of arcana I expect in my cryptic tweets from a man who isn't the Stanford football coach, but the Bradford M. Freeman

    SI.com 2010

  • Because, upon taking a few minutes after lunch to look it up in the Sterling Memorial Library — that incomparable treasury of arcana — I find that the term exists in a generous handful of slightly different forms, none of which, it turns out, ends in – ums:

    Manavalums 2009

  • It employs a host of translators—human beings, not machines—who turn foreign arcana into fluent English every day.

    Today's News, Brought to You by Your Friends at the CIA Barry Newman 2011

  • "Arcadia" is set in an English country house in the early 1800s and the recent past and touches on such arcana as chaos theory.

    Stoppard Play 'Arcadia' Next Up in a String of British Exports Christopher John Farley 2011

  • Because, upon taking a few minutes after lunch to look it up in the Sterling Memorial Library — that incomparable treasury of arcana — I find that the term exists in a generous handful of slightly different forms, none of which, it turns out, ends in – ums:

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

Comments

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  • The Major Arcana are the trumps of Tarot cards;

    the Minor Arcana are the numbered pip Tarot cards

    July 18, 2008