The Garden

A plain-English reference

Glossary

Short meanings for the terms you are likely to meet across the three traditions, and for the words used when reading research. Words are used in different ways by different groups and writers, so treat each entry as a starting point. An entry with a small number has a source in the notes at the foot of the page; the rest are plain definitions of how the word is generally used. Where a term is linked from other pages, they are listed under the entry.

16 min read · Updated 11 November 2026 · Last checked 11 November 2026

Epicureanism #

Aponia
Freedom from bodily pain. Together with ataraxia, it is what Epicurus meant by the greatest pleasure.1 Read more Used on: Epicureanism, Epicurus' three letters: a reading guide, Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus
Ataraxia
Freedom from mental disturbance: the settled calm that Epicurus counted as the heart of a happy life. The Greek word means 'not being stirred up'.2 Read more Used on: Epicureanism, Epicurus' three letters: a reading guide, Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus
Atomism
The view, taken from Leucippus and Democritus, that everything is made of tiny indivisible particles moving in empty space. Epicurus used it to argue that death is the end of sensation and that the gods do not steer the world.3 Read more Used on: Epicurus' three letters: a reading guide, Epicurus: Letter to Herodotus
Epicurean
A follower of Epicurus. In everyday English the word has come to mean a lover of fine food, which is not what the school taught. Used on: Epicureanism today
The Garden
Epicurus' school in Athens, which met in a house and garden he bought around 306 BCE. His followers were sometimes called 'the philosophers of the Garden'.4 Read more
Hedonism
The view that pleasure is the good. Epicurus held a version of it, but the pleasure he had in mind was calm and modest, and he warned against excess. Read more
Katastematic pleasure
The pleasure of a settled, pain-free state, as opposed to 'kinetic' pleasure, the pleasure of movement, such as eating when hungry. Ancient sources report that Epicurus drew this distinction, and scholars still debate how he ranked the two.5 Used on: Epicureanism, Epicurus' three letters: a reading guide
Lathe biosas
Greek for 'live unnoticed'. Plutarch reports it as Epicurean advice to avoid public ambition and live quietly among friends.6 Used on: Epicurus and the Stoics
Natural and necessary desires
Epicurus sorted desires into three groups: natural and necessary, such as food and shelter; natural but unnecessary, such as expensive food; and neither natural nor necessary, such as fame or power. He advised satisfying the first and being wary of the rest. Read more Used on: Epicurus' three letters: a reading guide, Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus
Principal Doctrines
Forty short sayings of Epicurus preserved by Diogenes Laertius, which students were probably meant to memorise.7 Read more Used on: Epicureanism
Prolepsis
Usually translated 'preconception': a general idea, such as 'god' or 'justice', formed in the mind from repeated experience. Epicurus counted preconceptions, with the senses and the feelings, among the tests of truth.8
Stoicism
A rival school founded in Athens around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium. Stoics held that virtue is the only good and that the world is ordered by reason.9 Read more
Swerve
Lucretius' word for the small, unpredictable deviation of atoms, which he uses to make room for free action. It is reported by Lucretius and Cicero, and it does not appear in the writings of Epicurus that survive. The Latin term is clinamen.10,11 Read more Used on: Epicurus and the Stoics, Lucretius: selected passages
Tetrapharmakos
The 'fourfold remedy': do not fear the gods, do not worry about death, what is good is easy to get, and what is terrible is easy to endure. The Greek name means 'four-part cure'. The four lines survive in a damaged Herculaneum papyrus attributed to Philodemus, and scholars disagree about whether they were a standard Epicurean slogan or the view of his opponents.12 Read more Used on: Epicureanism
The Twentieth
A monthly gathering of friends on the twentieth day of the month. Epicurus' will provides for it, and modern Epicureans keep the custom with a simple shared meal.13 Read more Used on: Epicureanism today, Epicurus and the Stoics, Epicurus and Lucretius
Vatican Sayings
About eighty sayings, some by Epicurus and some by his followers, identified in a manuscript in the Vatican Library in 1888.14 Read more

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Paganism #

Altar
A table, shelf or surface used for offerings, candles and objects that matter to the person. It can be as small as a windowsill.
Ancestor veneration
Honouring the dead, whether family or the people of a place, by remembering them, offering food or drink, or keeping a shrine.
Animism
The view that the world is full of living beings, including animals, plants, rivers and mountains, who can be respected as persons. Used on: Where to begin with Paganism
Book of Shadows
A notebook of rituals, spells and observations, kept by a Wiccan or a coven.
Coven
A small group who practise Wicca or witchcraft together. Thirteen is the traditional number given for a coven, but groups vary.
Cross-quarter day
One of the four festivals that fall between the solstices and equinoxes: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. Used on: Paganism, Where the Wheel of the Year came from
Deity
A god or goddess. Pagans may honour many, a few or one, and some think of the gods as real beings while others see them as symbols.
Divination
Methods such as tarot, runes or scrying used to seek insight. Many Pagans treat them as aids to reflection and not as prediction.
Eclectic
A practitioner who draws on several traditions and does not follow one in particular.
Equinox
The two days in the year when day and night are about equal, in March and September.
Esbat
A Wiccan meeting, usually held at the full moon.
Folkish
Describes groups, mostly in Heathenry, that tie their religion to ancestry. Many Pagan and Heathen organisations publicly reject it. The contrast is "universalist".
Grove
A local group of Druids, or a wood used for ritual.
Handfasting
A Pagan wedding or commitment ceremony, often with the couple’s hands bound with a cord.
Heathen
A follower of Heathenry, the modern revival of Germanic and Norse religion. The word can also mean pagan in older English.
Imbolc
A festival at the start of February, linked to the first signs of spring and, in Ireland, to Brigid.15
Initiation
A ceremony that admits someone into a coven, order or tradition.
Libation
A liquid offering, such as water, wine or milk, poured out for a god, spirit or ancestor.
Lughnasadh
A festival at the start of August, marking the first harvest. In Irish tradition it is linked to the god Lugh. In English tradition the day is Lammas, a separate Christian feast that many modern Pagans treat as the same occasion.16,17
Monism
The view that all things are in the end one. Some Pagans hold it alongside belief in many gods.
Neopaganism
A name for modern Paganism, used to distinguish it from the ancient religions. Many Pagans simply say Paganism.
Offering
Something given to a god, spirit or place, such as food, drink, flowers, time or an act of care.
Pagan
An umbrella word for religions that honour nature, many gods or both. It began as a Latin word for country-dweller.
Pantheism
The view that the divine and the natural world are the same.
Polytheism
Belief in, or reverence for, many gods.
Reconstructionism
An approach that bases modern practice on careful study of the historical evidence for an ancient religion.
Revival
A modern movement that takes inspiration from an older tradition without claiming an unbroken line.
Sabbat
One of the eight festivals of the Wheel of the Year, in Wiccan usage.
Samhain
The festival at the start of November. Early Irish sources name it as one of the four seasonal festivals. The idea that it was an ancient festival of the dead owes much to Frazer and later writers, and historians treat it with caution; many Pagans mark it as a time to remember the dead.18
Solitary
A practitioner who works alone and not in a group.
Solstice
The two days in the year with the longest and shortest daylight, in June and December. Used on: Paganism, Where the Wheel of the Year came from
Syncretism
The blending of beliefs or practices from different traditions.
Wheel of the Year
The yearly cycle of eight festivals, four solstices and equinoxes and four cross-quarter days, in its present form from the mid-20th century. Read more
Wicca
A modern initiatory religion of witchcraft founded in 20th-century England, usually honouring a Goddess and a God. Its best-known early figures were Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente.19 Used on: Where to begin with Paganism, Paganism
Witch
A person who practises witchcraft. Not every witch is a Wiccan, and not every Wiccan calls themselves a witch.

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Shinrin-Yoku #

Attention restoration theory
Rachel and Stephen Kaplan's proposal that natural settings hold our attention gently, so that the tired, directed attention we use at work can recover. It is a theory, not a settled finding.20 Read more Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Biophilia
The idea, popularised by the biologist Edward O. Wilson in the 1980s, that humans have an inborn tendency to seek connection with nature. It is a hypothesis, and scientists still argue over it.21
Chinju no mori
The grove of trees around a Shinto shrine, often explained as the 'grove of the guardian kami'. Most shrines are set within one, and the grove can itself be treated as sacred. Many are small and local, and urban growth and neglect have reduced them. If you walk in one, follow the shrine's own rules.22,23 Used on: Shinrin-Yoku
Forest bathing
The English name for shinrin-yoku. There is no water: you are 'bathing' in the atmosphere of the forest. Read more
Forest therapy
Guided forest walks run as part of a health or wellbeing programme, found especially in Japan and South Korea. It is related to shinrin-yoku but is usually more structured.24
Hanami
Japanese for 'flower viewing' (花見): going out to enjoy blossom, above all cherry blossom, often with a picnic. Its autumn counterpart for red leaves is momijigari. Read more Used on: Shinrin-Yoku through the seasons
Kami
The Japanese word, used in Shinto, for the sacred powers and presences found in mountains, waterfalls, trees and unusual rocks, and also in ancestors and other awe-inspiring things. There is no fixed definition, kami are not simply good or bad, and 'god' or 'spirit' is only a rough translation. Shinrin-yoku is a modern, secular practice and not a Shinto rite, but this is the older background to how many people in Japan regard woods and groves.25 Used on: Shinrin-Yoku
Komorebi
Japanese for sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees (木漏れ日). English has no single word for it, though 'dappled sunlight' comes close. It is an everyday word, not a technical term, but it names something worth looking for on a woodland walk.26
Microseasons
The traditional Japanese division of the year into 72 short seasons of about five days each, with names such as 'first peach blossoms'. They came from China and were rewritten for Japan's climate in 1685.27 Read more Used on: Shinrin-Yoku through the seasons
Phytoncides
Aromatic compounds released by trees and other plants. Some Japanese studies suggest they may affect the body, but this is the least well supported explanation for the benefits people report.28 Read more Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show, What the research says about forest bathing, Shinrin-Yoku
Satoyama
Japanese for the managed woodland, farmland and paddies around a village (里山, from sato, 'village', and yama, 'mountain' or 'woodland'). The word is used loosely, and sometimes stands for the traditional rural landscape as a whole.29
Shinrin-yoku
Japanese for 'forest bathing' (森林浴): slow, unhurried time among trees, with attention on the senses. Japan's Forestry Agency promoted the term in 1982.30 Read more
Sit spot
A place outdoors that you return to regularly and simply sit in, noticing what is around you. Read more
Stress reduction theory
Roger Ulrich's proposal that natural scenes calm the body's stress response, perhaps because humans evolved in natural settings.31 Read more Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show

Back to the Shinrin-Yoku overview

Reading the evidence #

Blinding
A study is blinded when the people taking part, the researchers, or both do not know who is in which group, so that expectations cannot colour the results. It is hard to blind a walk in a forest, because people know where they have been. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Confidence interval
A range around an estimate that shows how precisely it has been measured. If the range includes zero, the result could be no effect at all. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Control group
The group in a study that does not receive the thing being tested, or receives something else, so the results can be compared. In forest studies the comparison is often a walk or a stay in a city.
Cortisol
A hormone released as part of the body's response to stress. Studies often measure it in saliva as a rough marker of stress, though levels also change through the day. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Heterogeneity
How much the results of different studies vary by more than chance would explain. A high figure, often reported as I², means the studies disagree with one another. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Meta-analysis
A way of combining the numbers from several similar studies into a single estimate. It is only as good as the studies that go into it. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Natural killer cell
A type of white blood cell involved in the body's early defence against infection. Studies of forest bathing sometimes measure how active these cells are in a blood sample. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Observational study
A study that records what people already do or experience, instead of assigning it. It can show that two things go together, but not on its own that one causes the other. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Prediction interval
The range in which the result of a new, similar study would be expected to fall. If it includes zero, a new study might well find no benefit. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Publication bias
The tendency for studies with positive results to be published more often than studies that find nothing, which can make a field look more convincing than it is. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show
Randomised controlled trial
A study in which people are assigned to groups by chance, so that the groups differ only in what is being tested. It is the usual standard for judging whether something works.
Systematic review
A review that searches for every study on a question using stated rules, and then judges the quality of each, instead of choosing the studies that suit an argument. Used on: What the forest-bathing research does and does not show

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Notes

  1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book X (Epicurus), trans. R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library, 1925), 10.131. ↩
  2. Diogenes Laertius, 10.128–9. ↩
  3. Diogenes Laertius, 10.38–44. ↩
  4. Diogenes Laertius, 10.10. ↩
  5. Diogenes Laertius, 10.136. ↩
  6. Plutarch, 'Is “Live unnoticed” a wise precept?' (De latenter vivendo), Moralia 1128–30. ↩
  7. Diogenes Laertius, 10.139–54. ↩
  8. Diogenes Laertius, 10.31–3. Epicurus's canon of truth: sensations, preconceptions and feelings. ↩
  9. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VII (Zeno and the Stoics), trans. R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library, 1925), 7.5. ↩
  10. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), 2.216–93. ↩
  11. Cicero, On Fate (De fato), 22–5. ↩
  12. Philodemus, untitled work beginning Pros tous… (Herculaneum papyrus PHerc. 1005), column 4, the source of the four-part remedy, col. 4. ↩
  13. Diogenes Laertius, 10.18. ↩
  14. Karl Wotke, 'Epikurische Spruchsammlung', Wiener Studien 10 (1888). ↩
  15. Sanas Cormaic (Cormac's Glossary), early tenth century, ed. Whitley Stokes and trans. John O'Donovan (Calcutta, 1868). ↩
  16. Máire MacNeill, The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford University Press, 1962). ↩
  17. Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford University Press, 1996). ↩
  18. Hutton 1996. ↩
  19. Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999). ↩
  20. Stephen Kaplan, 'The restorative benefits of nature: toward an integrative framework', Journal of Environmental Psychology 15 (1995), 169–82. ↩
  21. Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia (Harvard University Press, 1984). ↩
  22. Suzuki Kentarō, 'Chinjugami', Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University. ↩
  23. 'What Are Shrine Groves?', Japan Tourism Agency sightseeing database. ↩
  24. 'Miyazaki Yoshifumi Explores the Healing Power of the Forest' (interview), nippon.com. Miyazaki says he coined the term in 2003 for shinrin-yoku backed by scientific data. ↩
  25. 'Definitions and Typology' (kami), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University. ↩
  26. 'Komorebi', Chicago Botanic Garden, Nature and Wellness. ↩
  27. 'Japan's 72 Microseasons', nippon.com. ↩
  28. Qing Li and colleagues, 'Effect of phytoncide from trees on human natural killer cell function', International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology 22 (2009), 951–9. ↩
  29. Satoyama Initiative discussion paper, Ministry of the Environment of Japan and UNU-IAS. ↩
  30. Miyazaki, nippon.com interview. ↩
  31. Roger S. Ulrich and colleagues, 'Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments', Journal of Environmental Psychology 11 (1991), 201–30. ↩

Ancient sources cited

Modern works cited

Cite this page. The Garden, ‘Glossary’, https://camelmaps.org/garden/glossary.php, last updated 11 November 2026, last checked 11 November 2026. What has changed.