illiteratus.com

In Greek, aphōrismenos means separated, set apart, marked off, a boundary. It is formed from apo, away from, and horizō, to divide, determine, draw a line. The same root as horizon, the line that separates earth from sky.

An aphorism belongs to this too. Before it became a short saying, aphorismos meant a definition, a delimitation. In Hippocratic medicine, it named concise statements that distinguished one condition from another, one symptom from the next. The aphorism describes and separates.

A horizon divides a landscape. A definition divides a concept. An aphorism divides thought.

It is brief but not incomplete. It is bounded. The aphorism does not attempt to say everything. It marks where one thing ends and another begins.

The shortest sentence is sometimes a line drawn around an abyss.