Ostracon
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A piece of pottery or stone, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel, especially one used to cast a vote during the Ancient Greek process of ostracism.
"The process in this condemnation was thus : the people being assembled, every man took a tile called ostrakon and carried it to a certain part of the market place, surrounded by wooden rails for that purpose, in which were ten gates for the ten tribes to enter distinctly : in this place the tiles were deposited by each person, and numbered in gross by the archons."
Example
More examples"The process in this condemnation was thus : the people being assembled, every man took a tile called ostrakon and carried it to a certain part of the market place, surrounded by wooden rails for that purpose, in which were ten gates for the ten tribes to enter distinctly : in this place the tiles were deposited by each person, and numbered in gross by the archons."
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek ὄστρακον (óstrakon).
More for "ostracon"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.