laconization

L1A1C3O1N1I1Z10A1T1I1O1N1

noun

The practice, or an instance, of making something more Spartan in character.

Scrabble 23

Meanings

nounlaconization (uncountable)
  1. rareuncountableThe practice, or an instance, of making something more Spartan in character.

    If we compare this situation with the Dark Age, it seems appropriate to speak of a thorough cultural Laconization of Messenia.

    2012, Kurt A. Raaflaub, Hans van Wees, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World - A Companion to Archaic Greece, Wiley-Blackwell, (unpaginated)
    4 more examples

    The phrase, “The rule of one is best”, is a laconization of this verse in Homer "there is no good in having many rulers; let only one ruler be, one king".

    2011, W. Lindsay Wheeler, Macrocosm/Microcosm in Doric Thought

    The strange appearance of these words, and others like them, is due to a combination of laconization and a tendency in koinē to omit the omicron in the final syllables of words ending in -ιος (ios) or -ιος (ion).

    2000, Nigel M. Kennell, The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, The University of North Carolina Press, (unpaginated)

    Inadvertently, however, oligarchs had overlooked the one major flaw in their laconization policy which the radicals seized upon to whip them into tacit agreement on imperialism. To be specific, laconization in foreign affairs.

    1985, Jeremiah Reedy, Apophoreta: Latin & Greek Studies in Honor of Grace L. Beede, Bolchazy Carducci Publications - Literary Collections, page 131

    Krentz makes a strong case that the primary motive for this further purging was not so much greed and fear, as Xenophon and Aristotle suggest, but rather the suppression of overt political opposition coupled with an attempt at the Laconization of the state, that is, reconstructing Athens to copy as closely as possible the Spartan model.

    1998, Robert J. Buck, Historia: Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy: The Life of an Athenian Statesman - Einzelschriften - Issue 120, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, page 63

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

laconization. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/laconization

MLA

“laconization.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/laconization. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “laconization,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/laconization.

Source: laconization on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.