Meanings
- capitalizedsometimesThe spirit, outlook, point of view, or social and cultural values characteristic of an era of human history.
A mind laughing, running, darting, planning, crunching letters and words one after the other, was something for which the spiritus mundi of this lost eon was not yet ready.
2007, Robert Ellwood, Campus Secrets, →ISBN, page 1663 more examples
. . . a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
1919, William Butler Yeats, The Second ComingJudson House was bohemian in the broadest sense of that term: a working or living space through much of the 20th century for people alienated from middle-class values, artistic, political, and spiritual. . . . "More than a building, it's the spiritus mundi," says senior minister Peter Laarman.
2000 July 25, C. Carr, “Bringing Down the House”, in Village Voice, retrieved 13 Mar 2012L.A. was a magnet for lives in desperate duress. . . . The place itself provided solace and recompense. They had the comfort of other arriviste losers. They entered the L.A. spiritus mundi.
2006 July 30, “The Great Right Place: James Ellroy Comes Home”, in Los Angeles Times, retrieved 13 Mar 2012, page I14Synonyms: temper of the times, tenor of the times, zeitgeist
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe spirit, outlook, point of view, or social and cultural values characteristic of an era of human history.
Origin
- Latinspīritus mundī
- Englishspiritus mundi
Unadapted borrowing from Latin spīritus mundī (literally “spirit of the world”).
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
spiritus mundi. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spiritus%20mundi
“spiritus mundi.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spiritus%20mundi. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “spiritus mundi,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spiritus%20mundi.
Source: spiritus mundi on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.