lyceum
/laɪˈsiːəm/
lyceum noun: a public hall designed for lectures, readings, or concerts.
Noun
lyceum (plural lyceums or lycea)
- A public hall designed for lectures, readings, or concerts.
- At a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme too foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might have done.1854, Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle
- In the autumn he was to return home; his family - composed, as Rowland knew, of a father, who was a cashier in a bank, and five unmarried sisters, one of whom gave lyceum lectures on woman's rights, the whole resident at Buffalo, N.Y. - had been writing him peremptory letters and appealing to him...1875, Henry James, Roderick Hudson, New York Edition 1909, hardcover, page 414
- A school, especially European, at a stage between elementary school and college, a lycée.
- We burst out laughing. She told me that one of her teachers at the "lyceum" used to say that whenever any of the students got up to anything.2021, Pedro Mairal, The Woman from Uruguay, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 109
- An association for literary improvement.
Proper noun capitalized: Lyceum
the Lyceum
lyceum meaning in Tamil
lyceum in Tamil
- உயர்நிலைப் பள்ளி, மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளி, நடுநிலைப் பள்ளி
Forms of lyceum
| plural | lyceums |
|---|---|
| plural | lycea |
Origin of lyceum
From Latin Lyceum, from Ancient Greek Λύκειον (Lúkeion) (the name of a gymnasium, or athletic training facility, near Athens where Aristotle established his school), from Λύκειος, from Proto-Greek *λύκη), "light." The meaning of the epithet "Lyceus" later became associated with Apollo's mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia (Λυκία) and who was identified with the wolf (λύκος). Doublet of lycée and Lyceum.
Learned borrowing from Latin Lycēum, from Ancient Greek Λύκειον (Lúkeion). Doublet of lyceum and lycée.
Questions about lyceum
- What does lyceum mean?
- Lyceum means a public hall designed for lectures, readings, or concerts.
- What is lyceum in Tamil?
- Lyceum in Tamil is உயர்நிலைப் பள்ளி, மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளி, நடுநிலைப் பள்ளி. See Lyceum meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is lyceum?
- Lyceum can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lyceum?
- Lyceum is pronounced /laɪˈsiːəm/.
- What is the plural of lyceum?
- The plural of lyceum is lyceums.
Words near lyceum in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lyceum (page history and authors); Lyceum (page history and authors); lyceum (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lyceum.wav.
Cite this entry: “lyceum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lyceum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.