different between syntopical vs syntopicon

English

Etymology

synoptic +? -al

Adjective

syntopical (not comparable)

1. Referring to a type of analysis in which different works are compared and contrasted.

   After finishing his syntopical reading of the leaders' speeches, he wrote an essay comparing the language used by Reagan, Carter, Gorbachev, and Qaddafi.

   • 1997: Dhun H. Sethna, Investing Smart

     (...) and it is their words and wisdom, accumulated over long periods of syntopical reading, that make up this text.

See also

• synoptic

Anagrams

• synoptical

English

Etymology

Coined as the name of an Encyclopaedia Britannica publication compiled by Mortimer Adler, A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas (1952).

Noun

syntopicon

1. (rare) A publication that indexes and compares a number of works in some field.
   • 1966, Joseph Samuel Bois, The art of awareness: a textbook on general semantics

     Obviously, this makes for a syntopicon that is extremely personal, that defies all the rules of classification by verbal labels...

   • 1971, American Medical Association, Archives of general psychiatry

     ...the production of a syntopicon of Freud's concepts...

   • 1989, John Stewart, Avoiding common pilot errors: an air traffic controller's view

     Like most of you though, I would like to see an expanded index or perhaps a "syntopicon" added to all of these documents.

Derived terms

• syntopical