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platonic

noun, adj — 6 senses

Platonic

nounalso spelled Platonic

/pləˈtɒnɪk/

Etymology From Latin Platōnicus. By surface analysis, Platon (“Plato”) + -ic (“relating to”).

1

A Platonist; a follower of Plato's ideas.

2

A Platonic solid.

platonic

adj

UK /pləˈtɒnɪk/ · US /pləˈtɔnɪk/

Etymology Variant of Platonic, which see. The sense “non-sexual” dates to the 17th century in English, and to the 15th century in Latin; see platonic love for details.

1

Neither sexual nor romantic in nature; being or exhibiting platonic love.

  • They are good friends, but their relationship is strictly platonic.
2

Alternative letter-case form of Platonic (of or relating to the philosophical views of Plato and his successors).

  • Plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this common human feeling, that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since.1902, William James, “Lecture 3”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC:
Antonyms
romantic, sexual
Derived terms
aplatonic, nonplatonic, platonically, platonic love, quasiplatonic, queerplatonic, semiplatonic

Platonic

adj

Etymology From Latin Platōnicus. By surface analysis, Platon (“Plato”) + -ic (“relating to”).

1

Usually Of or relating to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato or his philosophies.

2

Usually Alternative letter-case form of platonic (non-sexual).

  • The homosexual dismisses heterosexual love as a distasteful bondage to normalcy and bourgeois domestication, but the Platonic lover of the soul is dismissing all sexuality as bondage to the physical world.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 193:
Derived terms
antiplatonic, Neoplatonic, Platonically, Platonic body, Platonic dialogue, Platonic hydrocarbon, Platonic ideal, Platonic solid, Platonic year
Related terms
Plato, Platonical, Platonism, Platonist, Platonistic

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for Platonic and platonic.