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esoteric |
5 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Esoteric \Es`o*ter"ic\, a. Marked by secrecy or privacy; private; select; confidential; as an esoteric purpose; an esoteric meeting. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Esoteric \Es`o*ter"ic\, n. (Philos.) a An esoteric doctrine or treatise; esoteric philosophy; esoterics. b One who believes, or is an initiate, in esoteric doctrines or rites. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Esoteric \Es`o*ter"ic\ ([e^]s`[-o]*t[e^]"[i^]k), a. [Gr. 'eswteriko`s, fr 'esw`teros inner, interior, comp. fr 'e`sw in within, fr 'es, e'is, into fr 'en in See {In}.] Designed for and understood by the specially initiated alone; not communicated, or not intelligible, to the general body of followers; private; interior; acroamatic; -- said of the private and more recondite instructions and doctrines of philosophers. Opposed to exoteric. Enough if every age produce two or three critics of this esoteric class, with here and there a reader to understand them --De Quincey. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: esoteric adj : confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle; "a compilation of esoteric philosophical theories" [ant: {exoteric}] From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]: ESOTERIC, adj Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, -- _exoteric_, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and _esoteric_, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time.
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