The Dictionary

The Dictionary is an authoritative lexicon referenced within the narrative. Its entries present multiple senses for a term and note how meanings vary across historical and disciplinary forms of Orth.

First appearance and context

Quotations attribute entries to "THE DICTIONARY, 4th edition, A.R. 3000." An early example is the entry for "Extramuros," which lays out several numbered senses and tags them by Orth tradition.

Role and function

The work serves as an in-text authority that frames usage within the mathic world. It distinguishes senses by era and discipline and sometimes records orthography, abbreviations, or pronunciation alongside concise definitions. Some entries also include brief historical notes about origins, cultural portrayals, or scholarly views.

Other quoted entries

• Proc: presented as a late Praxic Age metatheorician, reportedly liquidated in the Terrible Events; a leading figure of the Circle asserting that symbols lack inherent meaning and that discourse is syntactic play. After the Reconstitution he is named patron Saunt of the Syntactic Faculty of the Concent of Saunt Muncoster and viewed as progenitor of orders stemming from that Faculty, contrasted with the Semantic Faculty (patron Saunt Halikaarn). See Proc.
• Incanter: described as a legendary figure in the Saecular imagination associated with the mathic world, said to alter physical reality by coded words or phrases. The idea is traced to work in the maths prior to the Third Sack, then inflated in popular entertainment that pitted fictionalized Incanters (linked to traditions around Saunt Halikaarn) against their foes, the Rhetors (linked to Procians). One scholarly view holds that confusion between such entertainments and reality among Saeculars helped set conditions for the Third Sack.

Current status

Known through cited excerpts; the compilers and physical location of the work have not been specified.