Word of the Day

: May 26, 2024

symposium

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noun sim-POH-zee-um

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What It Means

Symposium can refer either to a formal meeting at which experts discuss a particular topic, or to a collection of articles on a particular subject. Symposium has two plural forms: symposia and symposiums.

// Professors and graduate students attended a three-day symposium on climate change.

// The organization will be publishing a symposium on genetic research.

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symposium in Context

“In 1966, at a meeting remembered in anthropological lore as the beginning of hunter-gatherer studies, seventy-five experts assembled in Chicago to synthesize our knowledge about foraging peoples. More than ninety-nine per cent of human history was spent without agriculture, the organizers figured, so it was worth documenting that way of life before it disappeared altogether. The symposium—and an associated volume that appeared two years later, both titled ‘Man the Hunter’—exemplified an obsession with hunting, meat-eating, and maleness.” — Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, 25 Sept. 2023

Did You Know?

When you hear the word symposium, you may—quite understandably—envision conferences full of intellectuals giving heady presentations on various arcana. But it was drinking, more than thinking, that drew people to the original symposia and gave us the word. Symposium (symposia or symposiums in plural form) comes from the Greek noun symposion, the word ancient Greeks used for a drinking party that follows a banquet. Symposion in turn comes from sympinein, a verb that combines pinein, meaning “to drink,” with the prefix syn-, meaning “together.” Originally, English speakers only used symposium to refer to such an ancient Greek party, but in the 18th century British gentlemen’s clubs started using the word for confabs in which conversation was fueled by drinking. By the end of the 18th century, symposium had gained the more sober sense we know today, referring to meetings in which the focus is more on imbibing ideas and less on imbibing, say, mead.