Praxiteles

English

The Aphrodite of Knidos, one of Praxiteles’ most famous sculptures.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin Prāxitelēs, from Ancient Greek Πρᾱξῐτέλης (Prāxitélēs).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɹakˈsɪtɪliːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Proper noun

Praxiteles

1. (Ancient Greece) The most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BCE, and the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue.
   • 1776, Edward Gibbon, chapter X, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC:

     The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles, who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons.

   • 1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC:

     Upon its surface of bronze were elaborately wrought, in the still exquisite workmanship of Greece, reliefs of the Olympian games; […] they paused motionless, as if suddenly transformed into stone—lifeless, but lifelike, as one of the breathing wonders of Praxiteles.

2. (astronomy) A crater on the planet Mercury measuring 182 km in diameter.
3. (astronomy) A main-belt asteroid discovered in 1973.

Translations

Attic sculptor of the 4th C. BC

• Latin: Prāxitelēs m

crater on Mercury

main-belt asteroid

Further reading

• Praxiteles (sculptor) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Praxiteles (crater) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Praxiteles (asteroid) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• terapixels

Latin

Etymology

From the Ancient Greek Πρᾱξῐτέλης (Prāxitélēs).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /praːkˈsi.te.leːs/, [präːkˈs̠ɪt̪ɛɫ̪eːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /prakˈsi.te.les/, [präkˈsiːt̪eles]

Proper noun

Prāxitelēs m sg (genitive Prāxitelis); third declension

1. Praxiteles (a celebrated Greek sculptor)

Declension

Third-declension noun, singular only.

Case	Singular
Nominative	Prāxitelēs
Genitive	Prāxitelis
Dative	Prāxitelī
Accusative	Prāxitelem
Ablative	Prāxitele
Vocative	Prāxitelēs

Related terms

• Prāxitelīus

Descendants

• English: Praxiteles
• French: Praxitèle

References

• “Praxĭtĕles”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Praxĭtĕlēs in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 1,234/1.

Further reading

• Praxiteles on the Latin Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^la