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parusia

parusia noun: a figure of speech by which the present tense is used instead of the past or the future, as in the animated narration of past events or the prediction of future ones.

Noun

parusia (uncountable)

  1. (rhetoric) A figure of speech by which the present tense is used instead of the past or the future, as in the animated narration of past events or the prediction of future ones.
    • The parusia has a twofold meaning, a spiritual and an historical, in St. John. Thus in John xiv. 18, 19 the coming Advent is resolved into […] an event already present: […]1899, Robert Henry Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, page 362
    • Plato places his utopia of a just society in timeless, mythological space, whereas St Augustine locates it in the mythological future of parusia. In both cases, however, the actual reality of the political institutions is presented as casual and subordinated to the true reality of essence.2008, Leszek Koczanowicz, Politics of Time: Dynamics of Identity in Post-communist Poland, page 23

Origin of parusia

From Ancient Greek παρουσία (parousía, “presence”).

Questions about parusia

What does parusia mean?
Parusia means a figure of speech by which the present tense is used instead of the past or the future, as in the animated narration of past events or the prediction of future ones.
What part of speech is parusia?
Parusia is a noun.

Words near parusia in the dictionary

  1. parures
  2. paruresis
  3. paruretic
  4. paruretics
  5. paruria
  6. parusia
  7. PARV
  8. parvafacies
  9. parvalbumin
  10. parvalbuminergic
  11. parvalbumins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parusia (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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