Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A self-feeding digesting furnace formerly used by alchemists. It was so made as to maintain a uniform and durable heat.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A digesting furnace, formerly used by alchemists. It was so constructed as to maintain uniform and durable heat.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
furnace orstove , designed and to maintain uniform heat. Primarily used byalchemists
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a furnace that feeds itself so as to maintain a uniform temperature; used by alchemists
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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These are the athanor -- immortal but not invincible -- and many dream of the day they can live openly.
Archive 2007-04-01 Blue Tyson 2007
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Volume III Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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Alchemy contributed to this appraisal of the vital cycle that was thought to be realized in the alchemist's oven (athanor); and the incorruptible nature of the starry world lost its prestige.
COSMIC IMAGES H 1968
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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None of us would have admitted that we believed in stone or elixir, the old Oxfordshire clergyman excited no belief, yet one among us certainly laboured with crucible or athanor.
Autobiographies W.B. Yeats 1965
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On the contrary, the jumble of experiences and impressions which fell to the lot of the author as to us all had assuredly been placed in the athanor of art, in that furnace of the sages which is said to be governed with wisdom.
The Ghost Ship Richard Middleton
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A vessel of this sort was employed for heating bodies in a closed space, the top being sealed up when the substances to be operated upon had been put inside, and the vessel heated in ashes in an athanor, a uniform temperature being maintained.
mollusque commented on the word athanor
Or this apparatus for the study of the fermentation of wine. A maze of crystal arches leading from athanor to athanor, from alembic to alembic.
--Umberto Eco, 1988, Foucault's Pendulum, p. 14
September 29, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word athanor
"When the dishes were cleared and the last of the locust jelly spooned from a shared bowl, Paytim poured two jiggers of amber whiskey. She removed a pair of red-hot pokers from the kitchen athanor, plunged one into each jigger, then dropped the spent pokers into the sink."
"The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 216 of Errantry: Strange Stories
May 1, 2013
qms commented on the word athanor
Beware the intemperate mage
Whose alembic's abubble with rage,
For hot wrath can pour
From the athanor
Of an angry alchemical sage.
December 3, 2014