numen

English

Etymology

From Latin nūmen.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈnjuː.mən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈnuː.mən/
• Rhymes: -uːmən

Noun

numen (plural numina)

1. A divinity, especially a local or presiding god.
   • 1671, Ralph Cudworth, chapter 4, in The True Intellectual System of the Universe:

     The Egyptians were doubtless the most singular of all the Pagans, and the most oddly discrepant from the rest in their manner of worship; yet nevertheless, that these also agreed with the rest in those fundamentals of worshipping one supreme and universal Numen […]

   • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 76:

     Where were Secretaries James and Foster and Senator Joseph, those dear daft numina who’d mothered over Oedipa’s so temperate youth?

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

     It was the solid and immovable tabernacle of the living numen whose son he had known, though but briefly and not intimately, in the flesh, and whose message he accepted with all his heart.

2. An influence or phenomenon at once mystical and transcendant.
   • 1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     […] but never did the places or the persons turn into idols for my irrational worship. It was only the numen in them that I loved, who, as I passed by abstracted, whispered some immortal word in my ear.

See also

• numinous
• numinal

Latin

Alternative forms

• noumen

Etymology

• Could be simply an action noun of *nuō, for *nuimen, from *nuō + -men, thus meaning "a nodding with the head", "a nod", "command", "will" (as nūtus), with the particular meaning of "the divine will", "the will or power of the gods", "divine sway".
• Others suggest the Ancient Greek word νοούμενον (nooúmenon) ("an influence perceptible by mind but not by senses"), from νοέω (noéō), was borrowed into Early Latin as the word noumen, whose spelling changed to numen in Classical Latin.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈnuː.men/, [ˈnuːmɛn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈnu.men/, [ˈnuːmen]

Noun

nūmen n (genitive nūminis); third declension

1. a nod of the head
2. divine sway or will
   • di immortales numine et auxilio urbis tecta defendunt :

     the immortal gods protect the roofs of the city with divine will and aid

3. divine power or right
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 6.251–252:

     in prece tōtus eram: caelestia nūmina sēnsī,
     laetaque purpureā lūce refulsit humus.

     [As] I was rapt in prayer, I sensed [the presence of] heavenly powers, and the joyful ground gleamed with purple light.
     (A poetic encounter with Vesta (mythology); see also Vestalia.)

4. divinity (Georges Dumézil argues this is a modern meaning and not one from the Classical period, where it was either attributed to particular gods or other entities, such as in numen Cereris or numen dei, or wrongly interpreted)
5. (by extension) fairy

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

	singular	plural
nominative	nūmen	nūmina
genitive	nūminis	nūminum
dative	nūminī	nūminibus
accusative	nūmen	nūmina
ablative	nūmine	nūminibus
vocative	nūmen	nūmina

Descendants

• → English: numen, numinous
• → Italian: nume
• → Portuguese: nume, númen
• → Spanish: numen

References

• “numen”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “numen”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• numen in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the sovereign power of the gods: numen (deorum) divinum
    

Old English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnumen/

Verb

numen

1. past participle of niman

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French noumène.

Noun

numen n (uncountable)

1. noumenon

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	numen	numenul
genitive-dative	numen	numenului
vocative	numenule

Spanish

Etymology

From Latin numen.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnumen/ [ˈnu.mẽn]
• Rhymes: -umen
• Syllabification: nu‧men

Noun

numen m (plural númenes)

1. numen
2. muse (source of inspiration)

   Synonyms: inspiración, musa

Further reading

• “numen”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10