Oikoumen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term used in antiquity to describe the entire known inhabited world, it signifies the collective cultures and regions acknowledged by ancient societies and reflects a sense of historical community across civilizations
2. This historical expression denotes the inhabited world recognized in ancient cultures, encapsulating the regions known to these societies and their interconnectedness as part of a global awareness
3. A word from ancient times referring to all inhabited lands known to early civilizations

Etymology: Ancient Greeks used "oikoumene" to mean the part of the earth where people actually lived, a sense that shows up in Herodotus. It came from "oikein," "to inhabit," which is itself built on "oikos," "house" or "household." So the inhabited world was, at root, the world seen as one large household. The word passed into English as "oecumene," mostly in scholarly and church contexts, where it refers to the whole Christian world or, in ecumenical usage, to the wider community of churches. The modern adjective "ecumenical" is built on the same root and reached English through Late Latin and Church Latin. Its spelling varies, with "oikoumene" preserving the Greek letters and "oecumene" the Latinized form.

Synonyms: ecumene