scholium

plural scholia · plural scholiums · alternative scholion

1. human sciencesA note added to a text as an explanation, criticism or commentary.

   Almost every word admits a scholium, and a long one too.

   1760–2, Goldsm., Cit. W., chapter cxiii

   5 more examples

   And when I shulde make scholias, notis, and gloses in the margent as himself and his master doith.

   1535, Joye, Apol. Tindale (Arb.), page 23

   Mr. Fox was fain to make soom Scholia’s on it, to reconcile a gloss like that of Orleance, which corrupts the Text.

   1660, Heylin, Hist. Quinquart., book ii, page 42

   Short Scholia are added to almost every chapter, containing various readings, or various translations, selected with much judgment and critical acumen.

   1799, Monthly Rev., volume XXX, page 136

   Judy, however, did not choose to receive the laugh as a scholium explanatory of the remark.

   1866, G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., chapter ix

   From a scholium on the Iliad (24. 496) we know that Bacchylides spoke of Theano as having borne fifty sons to Antenor.

   1904, R. C. Jebb, Bacchylides (Proc. Brit. Acad.), page 9

2. mathematicsA note added to a proof as amplification.

   Which is evident likewise concerning the Orbits of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, from the Scholium to Prop. 9.

   1715, anonymous translator, Gregory’s Astron., volume I, published 1726, page 23

   3 more examples

   Scholium, is a remark made leisurely, and as it were by the by, on that Proposition, Subject or Discourse before advanced, treated of, or delivered.

   1704, J. Harris, Lex. Techn., volume I

   Some…cast all their…metaphysical and…moral learning into the method of mathematicians, and bring every thing relating to those abstracted or those practical sciences under theorems, problems, postulates, scholiums, corollaries, &c.

   1741, Watts, Improv. Mind, book i, chapter xiv

   A scholium is a remark applied to some preceding propositions, in order to point out their relative connection, or general utility and application.

   1824–5, Barlow, in Encycl. Metrop., volume I, page 314/2

3. A “copy-book maxim”, trite saying.

   The old scholium, that ‘too much familiarity breeds contempt’.

   1830, Marryat, King’s Own, chapter xix