Origin and history of lyceum

larger carnivorous canine of the Old World, hunting in packs, destructive to farm animals, and occasionally attacking humans; Middle English, from Old English wulf "wolf; wolfish person, devil," from Proto-Germanic *wulfaz, from PIE root *wlkwo- "wolf."

This is reconstructed to also be the source of Sanskrit vrkas, Avestan vehrka-; Albanian ul'k; Old Church Slavonic vluku; Russian volcica; Lithuanian vilkas "wolf;" probably also Greek lykos, Latin lupus. Germanic cognates include Old Saxon wulf, Old Norse ulfr, Old Frisian, Dutch, Old High German, German wolf, Gothic wulfs. Old Persian Varkana- is "Hyrcania," district southeast of the Caspian Sea, literally "wolf-land;"

The type of a predator, it was commonly contrasted to sheep; in reference to persons in Middle English it denotes rapacity, ferocity, one who preys on the innocent or powerless. Also a complimentary word for a warrior in Germanic given names, as Adolf, Rudolph. The animal probably was driven to extinction in England by the end of the 15th century, in Scotland by the early 18th. The U.S. gray wolf is a different and larger species.

Wolves as a symbol of lust are ancient, such as Roman slang lupa "whore," literally "she-wolf" (preserved in Spanish loba, Italian lupa, French louve). The equation of "wolf" and "prostitute, sexually voracious female" persisted (wolfesse glosses Latin lupa late 14c.), but by Elizabethan times wolves had become primarily symbolic of male lust.

The specific use of wolf for "sexually aggressive male" is attested by 1847. Colloquial wolf-whistle is attested by 1945, American English, at first associated with sailors ashore.

The image of a wolf in sheep's skin is attested in English by c. 1400.

This haue be feyned religiows ypocrites with here disgised clothes, þat had the lambe is skyn upon hem selffe be semyng with owt, but withinforth thei were ravisshing wolffes. ["The Pilgrimage of the Soul," early 15c.]

To cry wolf "raise a false alarm" is by 1812, from the well-known moral story of the shepherd boy (attested in English by 1690s). To keep the wolf from the door "keep out hunger or want" is by late 15c.

This manne can litle skyl ... to saue himself harmlesse from the perilous accidentes of this world, keping ye wulf from the doore (as they cal it). ["The Institution of a Gentleman," 1555]

The wolf-spider (the European tarantula) is so called by c. 1600, for prowling and leaping on its prey rather than waiting in a web. Figurative throw (someone) to the wolves is by 1927, on the notion of putting off pursuit by sacrificing one of the pursued.

mid-15c., Achademie, "the classical Academy," properly the name of the public garden where Plato taught his school, from Old French (Modern French Académie) and directly from Latin Academia, from Greek Akadēmeia "The Academy; the grove of Akadēmos," a legendary Athenian of the Trojan War tales (his name, Latinized as Academus, apparently means "of a silent district"), who was original estate-holder of the site.

The A[cademy], the Garden, the Lyceum, the Porch, the Tub, are names used for the five chief schools of Greek philosophy, their founders, adherents, & doctrines: the A., Plato, the Platonists & Platonism; the Garden, Epicurus, the Epicureans, & Epicureanism; the Lyceum, Aristotle, the Aristotelians, & Aristotelianism; the Porch, Zeno, the Stoics, & Stoicism; the Tub, Antisthenes, the Cynics, & Cynicism. [Fowler]

Compare lyceum. By 1540s the word in English was being used for any school or training place for arts and sciences or higher learning. "In the 18th century it was frequently adopted by schools run by dissenters, and the name is often found attached to the public schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1941]; hence, in the U.S., a school ranking between an elementary school and a university. "In England the word has been abused, and is now in discredit in this sense" [OED, 1989]. By 1560s it was used for "a place of training" in any sense (riding schools, army colleges).

The word also was used of associations of adepts for the cultivation and promotion of some science or art, whether founded by governments, royalty, or private individuals. Hence Academy award (1939), so called for their distributor, the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (founded 1927).