Adytum and Asylum

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott · Confusing Words Series · 4 pages

One of the shortest files in the series, and the most purely lexical: a single page distinguishing two Greek words that both come into English as "sanctuary", using the definitions of Liddell and Scott. Adytum is the never-setting, of stars, and the not-to-be-entered, of a treasure room — the innermost sanctuary or shrine, and so the synonym of sanctum. Asylum is safe from violence and not liable to reprisals, and so the synonym of sanctuary proper.

The distinction turns on what each word protects against. An adytum is closed because of what is inside it; an asylum is safe because of what may not be done there. The entry for asylum carries the fact that makes this concrete: sylon was the right of seizing the ship or cargo of a foreign merchant to cover losses received through him, so that a place described as asylon was one where that right did not run. The remaining pages are the series' standard suggested reading and the list of the other confusing words.

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