Home › Glossary › Letter G

Gnomologion

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A poem composed as or incorporating a collection of aphorisms, maxims or gnomic sayings.

Detailed Definition
Gnomologion refers to a collection or sequence of gnomic utterances—aphorisms, maxims, or sententiae—arranged as a poetic or prose work to convey moral, philosophical, or practical wisdom; in poetry, it manifests as a series of epigrammatic stanzas or lines that accumulate insight through juxtaposition rather than narrative, as in the fragments of Heraclitus or modern compilations like C.D. Wright’s “One Big Self,” where brevity becomes a vehicle for ethical and existential clarity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Gnomologion: “Pain teaches what pleasure forgets” (aphoristic); “Silence is the loudest answer” (gnomic verse); “A wound remembers longer than skin” (proverbial); “Truth wears worn shoes” (didactic couplet)
Additional Notes
Collection of maxims or wise sayings in verse. Didactic form. Related to aphoristic poetry. Study tip: Expect concentrated wisdom; each line potentially standalone proverb.
Also Known As
collection of aphorisms gnomic poem
Skip to main content