Update
Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 18 February 2025

pons asinorum 

Source:
The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Author(s):
Elizabeth KnowlesElizabeth Knowles

the point at which many learners fail, especially a theory or formula that is difficult to grasp. The term is Latin for ‘bridge of asses’, taken from the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid.... ...

Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.