hebdomad, -ade
(ˈhɛbdəmæd, -eɪd)
Also 6 ebd-.
[ad. L. hebdomas, hebdomad-, a. Gr. ἑβδοµάς (-αδ-) the number seven, a period of seven days.]
† 1. The number seven viewed collectively; a group composed of seven. Obs.
| 1545 Joye Exp. Dan. x. (R. s.v. Heavy), I Daniel was so heuey by thre hebdomads of dayes. 1552 Huloet, Ebdomade, Vide in number of 7. 1603 Sir C. Heydon Jud. Astrol. 411 (Stanf.), 9 Hebdomades of yeares. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §20. 376 The Tetrad is an arithmetical mediety betwixt the Monad and the Hebdomad. 1837 Southey Doctor IV. Inter-ch. xiv. 57 Like the hebdomad, which profound philosophers have pronounced to be..a motherless as well as a virgin number. |
2. The space of seven days, a week: used particularly in reference to the ‘70 weeks’ of Daniel's prophecy.
| 1600 W. Watson Quodlibets Relig. & St. (1602) 201 (Stanf.) In this Babylonian transmigration Daniels Hebdomades beginning to take their place. 1662 Glanvill Lux Orient. ii. (1682) 15 Those of creation being concluded within the first Hebdomade. 1890 E. Johnson Rise Christendom 413 The Passion was consummated in the time of the seventieth Hebdomad. |
3. In some Gnostic systems, a group of seven superhuman beings; also a title of the Demiurge.
| 1837 Whewell Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857) I. 223 The intellectual gods..evolve the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual triads, into intellectual hebdomads. 1853 W. E. Tayler Hippolytus ii. iv. 97 Seven powers are supposed to have originated from the First Cause of all, which hebdomad formed, with their author, the first ogdoad..or root of all existence. 1881 Chr. Wordsworth Ch. Hist. I. 195 In the next lower sphere [below the Ogdoad, in the system of Basilides] called the Hebdomad, or sphere of seven, is the second Archon, or Ruler. |