Philerast

Quick meaning: Philerast is a noun meaning (chiefly in historical usage pertaining to Ancient Greece) A boy who feels philia or more specifically anterōs, for his paederastic lover.

Meaning

(chiefly in historical usage pertaining to Ancient Greece) A boy who feels philia or more specifically anterōs, for his paederastic lover.

Example Sentences

For more examples of the usage of this term see this entry’s citations page as well as the citations page for philerast.

1997: “Leo”, uk.politics.misc (Google group): Broome House: Paedophiles, the 31st day of August at 8 o’clock a.m. [The Ancient Greeks] also had a word which can be rendered ‘philerast’, meaning a boy who loves his lover.

Milton strained to redefine marriage as the friendship Socrates recommended — an erotics beyond the sexual. As a result, his notion of marriage sometimes looks a lot like a heteroerotic paederasty, with Adam as the paederast and Eve the philerast destined never to outgrow the role of student and beloved.

[…] “while they are still boys [i.e., pubescent or pre-adult], they are fond of men, and enjoy lying down together with them and twining their limbs about them, . . . but when they become men they are lovers of boys. . . . Such a man is a paederast and philerast [i.e., fond of or responsive to adult male lovers]” at different stages of his life […]

Word Forms

• philerasts
• philerastes

Synonyms for philerast

Depending on context, synonyms include beloved, catamite, darling, pais.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include philiac, paederasty, philanthrope, philologaster, philomath, philologer.

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