Platonic
adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A Platonist; a follower of Plato's ideas.
- 2 A Platonic solid.
- 1 Of or relating to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato or his philosophies. not-comparable, usually
- 2 Neither sexual nor romantic in nature; being or exhibiting platonic love.
"They are good friends, but their relationship is strictly platonic."
- 3 Alternative letter-case form of platonic (non-sexual). alt-of, not-comparable, usually
"The homosexual dismisses heterosexual love as a distasteful bondage to normalcy and bourgeois domestication, but the Platonic lover of the soul is dismissing all sexuality as bondage to the physical world."
- 4 Alternative letter-case form of Platonic (of or relating to the philosophical views of Plato and his successors). alt-of
"Plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this common human feeling, that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since."
- 1 free from physical desire wordnet
- 2 of or relating to or characteristic of Plato or his philosophy wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"He's not my boyfriend, it's just platonic love with benefits!"
Etymology
From Latin Platōnicus. By surface analysis, Platon (“Plato”) + -ic (“relating to”).
Variant of Platonic, which see. The sense “non-sexual” dates to the 17th century in English, and to the 15th century in Latin; see platonic love for details.
Related phrases
More for "platonic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.