denoting the diatonic scale of eight notes arrived at by Pythagoras and based on a succession of fifths
noun
3.
a follower of Pythagoras
Pythagorean in American English
(pɪˌθæɡəˈriən)
adjective
1.
of or pertaining to Pythagoras, to his school, or to his doctrines
noun
2.
a follower of Pythagoras
Word origin
[1540–50; ‹ L Pȳthagorē(us) (‹ Gk Pȳthagóreios of Pythagoras) + -an]This word is first recorded in the period 1540–50. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: cabinet, flare, machine, monitor, vacuum-an is a suffix occurring originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nounsdenoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan), and now productively forming English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.Attached to geographical names, it denotes provenance or membership (American; Chicagoan), the latter sense now extended to membership in social classes, religious denominations,etc., in adjectives formed from various kinds of noun bases (Episcopalian; pedestrian; Puritan; Republican) and membership in zoological taxa (acanthocephalan; crustacean). Attached to personal names, it has the additional senses “contemporary with” (Elizabethan; Jacobean) or “proponent of” (Hegelian; Freudian) the person specified by the noun base. It also occurs in a set of personal nouns,mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works withthe referent of the base noun (comedian; grammarian; historian; theologian)