“Pneumatic.
Which represents the highest degree of
spiritual
perfection
”, in the language of the Gnostics, we can
read in the Trésor de la langue française completed in 1994,
one of the rare great dictionaries of the twentieth century to retain
this religious meaning of the word, for a reality totally disappeared.
Who were indeed the Gnostics?
The followers
of a religion of the first two centuries, considered
one of the first heresies then condemned by
the Church.
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What is the origin of the word pneumatic?
Here is a word which lacks neither seniority nor air!
Inspiring, yesterday, religious spirits and inflating air today all kinds of objects: canoes, motors, hammers, mattresses, devilishly inflatable.
But where does it come from that this religious substantive, still presented in our dictionaries a century ago, breathed its last as it passed the twenty-first century?
First of all, do not think that this is a road deviation!
Already, in 1690, in his
Dictionary
, Furetière noted that
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