Word.ws English Dictionary

Praxiteles

/pɹakˈsɪtɪliːz/

Praxiteles proper noun: 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.

praxiteles: the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BCE, and the first to sculpt the nude...
Image: Copy of Praxiteles; restorer: Ippolito Buzzi (Italian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.
    • 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.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
    • 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.1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC
  2. A crater on the planet Mercury measuring 182 km in diameter.
  3. A main-belt asteroid discovered in 1973.

Origin of Praxiteles

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

Questions about Praxiteles

What does Praxiteles mean?
Praxiteles means 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.
What part of speech is Praxiteles?
Praxiteles is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Praxiteles?
Praxiteles is pronounced /pɹakˈsɪtɪliːz/ (UK).

Words near Praxiteles in the dictionary

  1. praxisists
  2. praxism
  3. praxist
  4. praxists
  5. Praxitelean
  6. Praxiteles
  7. pray
  8. pray away the gay
  9. pray in aid
  10. pray tell
  11. pray the gay away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Praxiteles (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Praxiteles.wav.

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