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Platonic   /plətˈɑnɪk/   Listen
adjective
Platonical, Platonic  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to Plato, or his philosophy, school, or opinions.
2.
Pure, passionless; nonsexual; philosophical.
Platonic bodies, the five regular geometrical solids; namely, the tetrahedron, hexahedron or cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.
Platonic love, a pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between persons of opposite sex, unmixed with carnal desires, and regarding the mind only and its excellences; a species of love for which Plato was a warm advocate.
Platonic year (Astron.), a period of time determined by the revolution of the equinoxes, or the space of time in which the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect to the equinoxes; called also great year. This revolution, which is caused by the precession of the equinoxes, is accomplished in about 26,000 years.



noun
Platonic  n.  A follower of Plato; a Platonist.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Platonic" Quotes from Famous Books



... English proverb about a cottage and love. It had been built by a mercantile bachelor for some Fair Rosamond, and did credit to his taste. An old woman, let with the house, was to cook and do the work. Alice was but a nominal servant. Neither the old woman nor the landlord comprehended the Platonic intentions of the young stranger. But he paid his rent in advance, and they were not particular. He, however, thought it prudent to conceal his name. It was one sure to be known in a town not very distant from the residence of his father, a wealthy and long-descended country gentleman. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... happens I have lost the thread of my thought: my thoughts, at the critical moment, frequently desert me, as my family did; they seem to carry on an alluring flirtation, and when I think them near they suddenly wave me from the distance. But, like a lover, I will follow on—follow on to platonic intercourse with my real mistress, the proletarian. And soul there is there. I have met as fathomless spirits among the workers as one will meet with anywhere. Art never has fathomed them, and may never be able to do so. Often have I stood dumbfounded before some simple ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... she was reviewing all the men who with her had sought to throw off the mantle of the Platonic and invest themselves in the more romantic habiliments of courtship. One lesson had been taught her from the first, and she had learned it thoroughly—too thoroughly! She was no ordinary girl to give way to unwise throbbing of the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... tribe, which might, perhaps, affect him extremely in point of reputation, as many people suppose that nothing of this kind can be carried on between unmarried persons of the two sexes without being tinged with love; and the rather so, since the notion of Platonic love is, at the present day, pretty generally, and I believe justly too, exploded. Platonic love is arrant nonsense, and rarely, if ever, takes place until the parties have at least passed their grand climacteric. Besides, the New-England people, I am told, are ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... sense this very idea, but his doctrine of the True in art, although depending upon the mystic basis of a holy Trinity, brought forth developments both rational and scientific which leave far behind the Platonic hypothesis. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various


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