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Apho­rism as used today in our post on Say­ings of the Sages is a sum­marised state­ment con­tain­ing a sub­jec­tive truth or obser­va­tion that is clev­erly and con­cisely writ­ten. A great exam­ple is the apho­rism, “Know Thy­self” as found inscribed in the fore­courts of the Tem­ple of Delphi.

The term apho­rism was first coined in the title of Apho­risms of Hip­pocrates. The term has now later been applied to sev­eral areas per­tain­ing to moral­ity, phys­i­cal sci­ence and even later to phi­los­o­phy and lit­er­ary principles.

DERIVATIVES
 

apho­rist | noun
apho­ris­tic | adjec­tive
apho­ris­ti­cally | adverb
aphorize | verb
 

ORIGINS

early 16th cent.: from French apho­risme or late Latin apho­ris­mus, from Greek apho­ris­mos ‘def­i­n­i­tion,’ from aphorizein ‘define.’

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