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catholicon|kəˈθɒlɪkən|
[a. 16th c. F. catholicon, -cum, a. L. catholicum, or Gr. καθολικόν adj., neut. sing., universal.]
1. An electuary supposed to be capable of evacuating all humours; a universal remedy or prophylactic; panacea. arch. [Used in Fr., in 16th c. by Ambrose Paré; its earlier history does not appear.]
1611Bible Pref. 3 Men talke much..of Catholicon the drugge, that it is in stead of all purges. 1642Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §9 Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no Catholicon or universal remedy I know but this. 1732–69De Foe, etc. Tour Gt. Brit. (ed. 7) II. 364 A Catholicon, and good for every thing. 1808Med. Jrnl. XIX. 338 Nor do I mean to assert, that it is such a catholicon as to exclude other adjuvants. 1833Chamb. Jrnl. No. 62. 73 A little plaister is his catholicon for all evils.
b. fig.
1631Gouge God's Arrows i. §66. 109 The spiritual Catholicon, that generall remedy which is fit for any malady, prayer. 1638Baker tr. Balzac's Lett. (1654) II. 29 A good wife is a Catholicon, or universal remedy for all the evils that happen in life. a1734North Life Ld. Kpr. Guildford (1742) I. 224 He..so made his Wit a Catholicon, or Shield, to cover all his weak Places and Infirmities. 1832Southey Lett. (1856) IV. 274 The panacea for all moral and political evils—the true and only catholicon. 1859Jowett Ep. Romans, Atonement & Satisf. §3 To assume revelation or inspiration, as a sort of shield or Catholicon, under which the weak points of theology may receive protection.
†2.
a. A universal formula. Obs.
b. A comprehensive treatise.
In the latter sense applied by Johannes de Balbis de Janua, as the title of his celebrated Latin Grammar and Dictionary, the Catholicon or Summa, made in 1286; whence in later times given to various vocabularies of Latin and some vernacular, e.g. the Catholicon Anglicum, an English-Latin Vocabulary dated 1483.
1647Jer. Taylor Lib. Proph. vii. 131 Neither one sense nor other can be obtruded for an Article of Faith, much lesse as a Catholicon instead of all. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) I. i. §90. 79 The Catholicon of John Balbi, a Genoese monk..consists of a Latin grammar, followed by a dictionary. 1865Way Promp. Parv. Pref. 23 The student of mediaeval antiquities will find in the Catholicon an auxiliary rarely to be consulted without advantage and instruction. Ibid. 64 The valuable English-Latin Dictionary, frequently cited as the ‘Catholicon Anglicum’. |