IUBio

Ephapse?

Nikos Sarantakos sarant at village.uunet.lu
Mon Sep 21 07:02:21 EST 1998


On Sun, 20 Sep 1998 07:23:58 GMT, ew65 at bcs.org.uk (Robert Stonehouse)
wrote:

>mentifex at scn.org (Mentifex) wrote:
>
>>Thank you, Yves De Rop <Yves.De.Rop at village.uunet.be>, for asking:
>>
>>> Does someone knows what an ephapse is?
>
>Apsis can also mean the orbit of a planet: might 'ephapse' be an
>epicycle? In astronomy, it is the point of nearest and furthest
>approach of a satellite to the body it orbits, e.g. apogee and
>perigee for the moon. So could it be 'somewhere close to apogee'?
>ew65 at bcs.org.uk

I have not followed the original thread, but FWIW in Ancient Greek
ephapsis means 'contact, touching'. It is rare and in Aeschylus it is
used,  I guess, with an amatory connotation, i.e. caress.

As an aside, in Modern Greek, ephapsias is the person who
seeks crowded places in order to surreptitiously caress others :-)

ns





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