Lyceum
/laɪˈsiːəm/noun
A hall or institution for public lectures and adult education, or the school Aristotle founded in Athens.
The Greek roots
Literally: “place of Lykeios”
The story of the word
The Lykeion was a grove and gymnasium outside the Athenian walls, sacred to Apollo under the epithet Lykeios, which may mean wolf-god or may mean light-bringer; the ancients themselves were not sure. Aristotle taught there while walking, which is why his followers were called Peripatetics, the strollers. Nineteenth-century America revived the name for travelling lecture circuits, and France still calls its senior secondary school the lycée.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
Emerson made a living on the lyceum circuit long before he was famous.
The old lyceum on Main Street is now a cinema.