Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of the 6,000 citizens chosen each year in ancient Athens to sit in the law courts, with functions resembling those of a judge and juror.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In ancient Athens, one of 6,000 citizens who were chosen by lot annually to sit as judges, in greater or less number according to the importance of the case, and whose functions corresponded to those of the modern juryman and judge combined.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A functionary in ancient Athens resembling closely to the modern juryman.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun historical A
juror in ancientAthens .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Philocleon is a bigoted devotee of the malady of litigiousness so typical of his countrymen and an enthusiastic attendant at the Courts in his capacity of 'dicast' or juryman.
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2 446? BC-385? BC Aristophanes
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Each "dicast" (to use the proper name) has a boxwood tablet to show at the entrance as his voucher to the Scythian police-archers on duty; he has also a special staff of the color of the paint on the door of the court room. [
A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian Life William Stearns Davis 1903
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And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?
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For the power does not reside in the dicast, or senator, or ecclesiast, but in the court, and the senate, and the assembly, of which individual senators, or ecclesiasts, or dicasts, are only parts or members.
Politics Aristotle 2002
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Now of offices some are discontinuous, and the same persons are not allowed to hold them twice, or can only hold them after a fixed interval; others have no limit of time — for example, the office of a dicast or ecclesiast.
Politics Aristotle 2002
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Let us not dwell further upon this, which is a purely verbal question; what we want is a common term including both dicast and ecclesiast.
Politics Aristotle 2002
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Here, Demos, feast on this dish; it is your salary as a dicast, which you gain through me for doing naught.
The Knights 2000
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The final part might almost be a separate play, under the title perhaps of 'The dicast turned gentleman,' and relates various ridiculous mistakes and laughable blunders committed by
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2 446? BC-385? BC Aristophanes
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Here, Demos, feast on this dish; it is your salary as a dicast, which you gain through me for doing naught.
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 446? BC-385? BC Aristophanes
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[698] It was the custom at Athens to draw lots to decide in which Court each dicast should serve; Praxagora proposes to apply the same system to decide the dining station for each citizen.
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2 446? BC-385? BC Aristophanes
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