a. and sb. [f. L. Eleātic-us, from Elea, name of an ancient Greek city in S.W. Italy: cf. -ATIC.]
A. adj. Pertaining to Elea or its inhabitants; spec. used of the philosophy of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Zeno, who lived or were born there. B. sb. An Eleatic philosopher.
1695. Ld. Preston, Boeth., I. 5. Brought up in Eleatique & Academique Studies.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857), I. 342. Parmenides must be regarded as an Eleatic [dialogue].
1849. Grote, Greece (1862), VI. lxvii. 44. The dialectical movement emanated … from the Eleatic school.
1870. Bowen, Logic, ix. 312. The famous argument, called the Achilles, proposed by Zeno the Eleatic.
Hence Eleaticism, the doctrine or system of the Eleatics.
1867. J. H. Stirling, trans. Schwegler’s Hist. Philos. (ed. 8), 15. Eleaticism is consequently monism, so far as it endeavours to reduce the manifold of existence to a single ultimate principle.
