Friday 4 December 2009

irenic

I feel rather sad that I've never heard this word before, not only because it must surely be in fairly common usage, but because it has such a lovely meaning:

irenic or irenical adj tending to create peace; pacific [From Greek eirene peace] Chambers, 1998

There are a few derivatives. Irenology is the study of peace and irenics is a branch of theology that promotes peace between Christian churches. Perhaps it's not used very often because of a perceived limitation due to the link with Christianity rather than multiple religions? Or perhaps it gets used lots and I've just been spending too much time watching The Wire to listen out for peaceful words.

1 comment:

  1. I'm aware of one Christian ministry which claims the use of this sort of theology, it was through them that I first saw the word.

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