pleroma
Meanings
Plural: pleromas
Noun
- A plant of the genus Pleroma.
- Synonym of plerome (“the central portion of the apical meristem in a growing plant root or stem which, according to the histogen theory, gives rise to the endodermis and stele”).
- A state of perfect fullness, especially of God's being as incarnated in Jesus Christ.
Name
- Often preceded by the: the spiritual universe seen as the totality of the essence and powers of God.
Origin / 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).
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.
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 (Hóti en autôōi katoikeî pân tò plḗrōma tês theótētos sōmatikôs) [For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form]”.
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 11
pleroma is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordpleroma is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
pleroma is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary