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Cult vs Xoanon - What's the difference?

cult | xoanon |

As nouns the difference between cult and xoanon

is that cult is a group of people with a religious, philosophical or cultural identity sometimes viewed as a sect, often existing on the margins of society or exploitative towards its members while xoanon is a wooden statue used as a cult image in Ancient Greece.

As an adjective cult

is of, or relating to a cult.

cult

English

(wikipedia cult)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A group of people with a religious, philosophical or cultural identity sometimes viewed as a sect, often existing on the margins of society or exploitative towards its members.
  • *
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  • Devotion to a saint.
  • (lb) A group of people having an obsession with or intense admiration for a particular activity, idea, person or thing.

    • Derived terms

    * cargo cult * cultic * cultist

    See also

    * sect

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Of, or relating to a cult.
  • Enjoyed by a small, loyal group.
    • a cult horror movie

    Usage notes

    The term has a positive connotation for groups of art, music, writing, fiction, and fashion devotees, but a negative connotation for new religious, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and pyramidal business groups.

    Anagrams

    * (l) ----

    xoanon

    English

    (wikipedia xoanon)

    Noun

    (xoana)
  • (historical) A wooden statue used as a cult image in Ancient Greece.
  • * 1913', E. A. Gardner, "Reviews: Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum", ''The Classical Review'', ' 27 , page 196
    • In the case of 679, the well-known female figure of xoanon shape, it is often asserted that we see a more or less archaistic survival;
  • * 1993 , Joan V. O'Brien, The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad, page 19
    • Callimachus' description of the Samian xoanon'' as a ''sanis''—a flat board or plank regularly used for doors or wooden tablets—and specifically as "not carved by chisels" (''gluphanôn axoos sanis ) clearly indicates an aniconic Hera of Samos.
  • * 2009 , Peter Wilson, "Thamyris the Thracian: the archetypal wandering poet?", in'' Richard Hunter & ?Ian Rutherford (editors), ''Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture , page 73
    • On Carlo Brillante's convincing interpretation, Thamyras is here attempting not simply to display his musical virtuosity, but to animate with his song this chorus of nine female xoana , his own personal substitutes for the nine real Muses