Gnomai

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. To form an opinion or judgment based on observation or reasoning; to think or consider something mentally; to imagine or suppose a possibility or state of affairs
2. The act of contemplating or reflecting on a matter; the process of coming to a conclusion or decision; engaging in mental activity to conceive or anticipate an idea
3. To use intellectual faculties to assess or deliberate on a topic; to have an internal dialogue or opinion about something; to visualize or hypothesize in one’s mind

Etymology: The word here is the plural of "gnome," and the two meanings could hardly be further apart. The modern English "gnome" is a small, bearded creature of folklore, but the Greek original, "gnōmē," meant "thought" or "opinion." It came from the same base as "gignōskein," "to know," so a gnome was first a way of knowing or judging something. The plural "gnomai" keeps that older sense. It is the plural form of the Greek noun, so it refers to several acts or instances of thinking, opinion, or judgement rather than to any creatures. The folklore sense arrived much later by a different route. French took "gnome" from New Latin "gnomus," a term that the Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus used as a synonym for "pygmaeus," meaning "pygmy." English later borrowed the French form. So the creature gets its name from a coinage about small beings, not from the Greek word for thought, even though both descend from the same Greek root.