Prophases

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The actual reasons for going to war. These may differ from proschemata, the pretexts offered to the public.
  2. 2
    plural of prophase form-of, plural

Synonyms

All synonyms
premetaphase

Etymology

Ancient Greek πρόφασις (próphasis, “pretense, pretext, excuse”), first popularized by Thucydides, who attempted to discern Athens' alethestate prophasis, or "truest reason" for waging war on Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.