before a vowel cosm-, combining form of Gr. κόσμος COSMOS, as in † Cosmocritics, critical investigations of the world or universe; † Cosmodelyte (see quot.); Cosmosophy, knowledge or science of the cosmos; † Cosmo-tellurian (see quot.); † Cosmo-zoism, the theory that the cosmos is endowed with life (see quot.). See also following words.
1686. Goad, Celest. Bodies, II. xiv. 354. Gemma’s Cosmocriticks.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Cosmodelyte, may be derived from κόσμος mundus, and δεῖλος, timidus or miser; and so Englished, one fearful of the world, or a worldly wretch. [Hence in Bailey (1721–90).]
1848. Southey, Comm.-pl. Bk., IV. 578. The various sophy’s—cosmosophy, kerdosophy.
1867. J. H. Stirling, Schwegler’s Hist. Philos. (ed. 7), 350. Erdmann views the Theosophy of the middle ages as a necessary complement to the Cosmosophy of the ancients.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Cosmo-tellurian influences, conditions, celestial and terrestrial, such as eclipses, stellar influences … earthquakes, and the like, which were formerly supposed to affect the constitution … of various diseases.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iii. § 26. 132. That the whole world … was … an animal, as our human bodies are, endued with one sentient or rational life and nature, one soul or mind, governing and ordering the whole. Which Corporeal Cosmo-zoism we do not reckon amongst the Forms of Atheism.
