Word.ws English Dictionary

theoxenia

theoxenia noun: hospitality towards a god who visits as a guest.

Noun

theoxenia (uncountable)

  1. Hospitality towards a god who visits as a guest.
    • S. Reixach maintains that the rite of theoxenia is derived from the primitive conception of the gods as relatives of those who entertain them...1902, Archaeological Institute of America, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, American School of Classical Studies in Rome, American journal of archaeology
    • An alternative interpretation to the theoxenia, though no doubt related in cult practise, would be that of parasitein.1989, Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art and cult under the Tyrants in Athens: Volume 1

Origin of theoxenia

From Ancient Greek θεοξενία (theoxenía), equivalent to theo- + xenia.

Questions about theoxenia

What does theoxenia mean?
Theoxenia means hospitality towards a god who visits as a guest.
What part of speech is theoxenia?
Theoxenia is a noun.

Words near theoxenia in the dictionary

  1. theow
  2. theowdom
  3. theowman
  4. theowmen
  5. theows
  6. theoxenia
  7. theoxeny
  8. theozoology
  9. theozyme
  10. theozymes
  11. thepla

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: theoxenia (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: “theoxenia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/theoxenia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.