Presocratic
Presocratic noun: any Ancient Greek philosopher who preceded or was roughly contemporaneous with Socrates and whose methods and views were influenced neither directly nor indirectly by Socrates or his primary student, Plato.
Noun
Presocratic (plural Presocratics)
- Any Ancient Greek philosopher who preceded or was roughly contemporaneous with Socrates and whose methods and views were influenced neither directly nor indirectly by Socrates or his primary student, Plato.
- The Great Mother is no simple notion from primitive religion, but an idea in a complex mythology that became demythologized and secularized by the Presocratics, but not changed.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 128
Adjective
Presocratic
- of, or characteristic of, such a philosopher (or these philosophers) as a whole.
Forms of Presocratic
| plural | Presocratics |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Pre-Socratic |
| alternative form | pre-Socratic |
Origin of Presocratic
From pre- + Socratic.
Questions about Presocratic
- What does Presocratic mean?
- Presocratic means any Ancient Greek philosopher who preceded or was roughly contemporaneous with Socrates and whose methods and views were influenced neither directly nor indirectly by Socrates or his primary student, Plato.
- What part of speech is Presocratic?
- Presocratic can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of Presocratic?
- The plural of Presocratic is Presocratics.
Words near Presocratic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Presocratic (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:
Cite this entry: “Presocratic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/presocratic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.