pleroma

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin pleroma (“(Gnosticism) spiritual universe seen as the totality of the essence and powers of God”), from Koine Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă, “(biblical) perfect fullness”), Ancient Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă, “that which fills, a complement; a filling up, a completing”), from πληρόω (plēróō, “to make full, fill; to complete, finish”) (from πλήρης (plḗrēs, “complete, full”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- (“to fill”)) + -όω (-óō, suffix forming verbs with the sense of making someone be or do something)) + -μᾰ (-mă, suffix forming nouns denoting the result or effect of an action). Noun sense 1.1 (“plant”) is borrowed from New Latin Pleroma, a genus name coined by the Scottish botanist David Don (1799–1841) in 1822, from Ancient Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă) (see above) to describe the way the seeds of the plant filled the capsule. Noun sense 2 (“state of perfect fullness”) is chiefly used in reference to Colossians 2:9 of the Bible: “Ὅτι ἐν αὐτῶῳ κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος σωματικῶς [For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form]”.

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