esemplastic

English

Etymology

From Greek ἐς ‘into’ + ἕν + πλαστικός (from πλάσσειν ‘to mould’). Coined by Coleridge, probably after German ineinsbildung ‘forming into one’.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛsɛmˈplæstɪk/

  Rhymes: -æstɪk

Adjective

esemplastic (not comparable)

1. Unifying; having the power to shape disparate things into a unified whole.
   • 1893: all the verses when taken together [...] are deficient in harmony, and consequently there is little or no fusion. The esemplastic power of the writer's feeling was not strong enough, did not extend beyond the individual verse. — Hiram Corson, A Primer of English Verse (pp. 21–22)
   • 2003: he [...] developed a doctrine of the organic (‘esemplastic’) imagination, over and against the passive and mechanical faculty of ‘fancy’ — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 405)