1. (noun)Zeno, Zeno of Elea ancientGreek philosopher who formulated paradoxes that defended the belief that motion and change are illusory (circa 495-430 BC)
2. (noun)Zeno, Zeno of Citium ancient Greek philosopher who founded the Stoicschool (circa 335-263 BC)
Definitions of 'zeno'
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
1. zeno Greekphilosopher of the Eleatic school (q. v.), and who flourished in 500 B.C.; was the founder of the dialectic so successfully adopted by Socrates, which argues for a particular truth by demonstration of the absurdity that would follow from its denial, a process of argument known as the reductio ad absurdum.
2. zeno Greek philosopher, the founder of Stoic philosophy, born at Citium, in Cyprus, son of a merchant and bred to merchandise, but losing all in a shipwreck gave himself up to the study of philosophy; went to Athens, and after posing as a cynic at length opened a school of his own in the Stoa, where he taught to extreme old age a gospel called Stoicism, which, at the decline of the heathen world, proved the stay of many a noble soul that but for it would have died without sign, although it is thus "Sartor," in the way of apostrophe, underrates it: "Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old GreekZeno trained thee; thou canst love the Earthwhile it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent" (342-270 B.C.). See Stoics, The. Zenobia