stoic means of or relating to the Stoics or their ideas. It carries an Arena rating of 1743, earned across 23 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, stoic ranks #135 of 17,116 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #389 of 17,123 for Most Malleable Words, #1,273 of 17,093 for Most Storied Words, #1,276 of 17,111 for Most Sublime Words.
stoic is pronounced /ˈstəʊ.ɪk/.
Why “stoic” is a great word
Enduring pain or hardship without showing feelings or complaining. From Latin stōicus, from Ancient Greek Στωϊκός (Stōïkós), derived from Ποικίλη Στοά (Poikílē Stoá, "the Painted Portico"), the Athenian colonnade where Zeno of Citium taught his philosophy in the early 3rd century BCE. Unlike "impassive," which suggests a constitutional absence of emotion, or "apathetic," which implies a failure of engagement, "stoic" names a discipline, not a deficit—a willful alignment of one's responses with reason. It is the surgeon continuing an operation after learning of a death at home, the prisoner refusing to give his captors the satisfaction of his anguish, or the parent who steadies their voice while delivering terrible news to a child. The stoic feels everything; he simply declines to let feeling become performance.
Etymology
From Latin stōicus (noun via Middle English Stoycis pl), from Ancient Greek Στωϊκός (Stōïkós), from Ποικίλη Στοά (Poikílē Stoá, “the Stoa Poikile”, literally “painted portico”), the portico in Athens where Zeno of Citium was teaching.
adj
- Of or relating to the Stoics or their ideas.
- Not affected by pain or distress.
- Not displaying any external signs of being affected by pain or distress.
noun
- Proponent of stoicism, a school of thought, from in 300 B.C.E. up to about the time of Marcus Aurelius, who holds that by cultivating an understanding of the logos, or natural law, one can be free of suffering.
- A person indifferent to pleasure or pain.e.g.“Even a Rolls-Royce owner, I began to feel, would be a stoic to travel across Europe by car when the "Rheingold" is on offer.”
- A student of Stowe School, England.
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