[ad. Gr. ἐννεάς, ἐννεάδ-ος, f. ἐννέα nine.]
1. The number nine. Obs.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 384/1. The Ennead is the first square of an odd number.
2. A set of nine persons or things (discourses, points, etc.); spec. one of the six divisions in Porphyry’s collection of Plotinus’ works, each of which contains nine books.
1653. H. More, Conject. Cabbal. (1713), 186. In his fifth Ennead … he makes the Universe a necessary Emanation of God.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 213. Though Tertullian be yet more Liberal, and encrease the Number to an Ennead.
1854. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos. (ed. 2), 58. I disposed them, he [Porphyry] says, into 6 Enneads, gladly availing myself of the perfect numbers (6 and 9).
1870. Prof. Cayley, in Nature, 29 Dec., 178/1. The name ‘ennead’ is given to any nine points in plano which are the intersections of 2 cubic curves: or to any nine lines through a point which are the intersections of two cubic curves.
1881. Ch. Q. Rev., 172. The exquisite language of the prophecy of Isaiah, especially in its last three enneads.
1884. E. A. Wallis Budge, Babylon. Life & Hist., ix. 128. The most important ennead [of Gods] among the Babylonians was as follows.
Hence Enneadic a., pertaining to an ennead.
