Meanings
- not comparableGnosticismSynonym of physical, material, or base.First known use 1820s
...a part of mankind were by original constitution altogether hylic or material...
1828, The New Jerusalem Magazine and Theological Inspector, page 1552 more examples
The Enthymesis or Achamoth, which was born of the Sophia, the last of the æones, and had fallen from the Pleroma, animated all matter, and produced three orders of beings,—the spiritual, the physical [sic, intending psychical], and hylic natures. The natural Demiurgos formed, in imperfect representations of the Pleroma, a new world, of which he is the ruler, while Satan, the king of the hylic natures, governs here upon earth.
1840, Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, translated by Edward Cox, A History of the Church, volume 1, page 133There was in man... a visible body..believed to be composed, according to many of the Gnostics, of a subtle element... which they named the hylic body, and a sheath of gross earthly matter which they called the choical body.
1914, Rufus Matthew Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries, page xiii
plural hylics
- GnosticismA base man, a person of merely physical concerns without mindfulness of either intellectual or spiritual matters.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Ancient Greekὑλικός“wooden, material”
- Medieval Latinhylicus
- Englishhylic
From Medieval Latin hylicus, from Ancient Greek ὑλικός (hulikós, “wooden, material”), from ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē, “wood, matter”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic, forming adjectives”). As a noun, a clipped calque of homo hylicus (“hylic man”).
More words from Medieval Latin, Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian материален
- материален (materialen)person focused on material reality
Czech hyletik, hmotař
- hyletikperson focused on material reality
- hmotařperson focused on material reality
- chlebařperson focused on material reality
- materialistaperson focused on material reality
Norwegian hyletiker
- hyletikerperson focused on material reality
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with hylic
All rhymes →Cite this entry
hylic. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hylic
“hylic.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hylic. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hylic,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hylic.
Source: hylic on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.