Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An affectedly elegant literary style of the late 1500s and early 1600s, characterized by elaborate alliteration, antitheses, and similes.
- noun Affected elegance of language.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In English literature, an affected literary style, originating in the fifteenth century, characterized by a wide vocabulary, alliteration, consonance, verbal antithesis, and odd combinations of words.
- noun Synonyms This word is sometimes confounded with euphemism and euphony. It has nothing to do with either.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Rhet.) An affectation of excessive elegance and refinement of language; high-flown diction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable An
ornate style ofwriting (inElizabethan England ) marked by the excessive use ofalliteration ,antithesis andmythological similes . - noun An example of euphuism.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an elegant style of prose of the Elizabethan period; characterized by balance and antithesis and alliteration and extended similes with and allusions to nature and mythology
- noun any artificially elegant style of language
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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Al – Saj’a, the fine style or style fleuri, also termed Al – Badí‘a, or euphuism, is the basis of all
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The literary affectation called euphuism was directly based on the precepts of the handbooks on rhetoric; its author, John Lyly, only elaborated and made more precise tricks of phrase and writing, which had been used as exercises in the schools of his youth.
English Literature: Modern Home University Library of Modern Knowledge G. H. Mair 1906
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If you are looking for a different sort of book – one that you can keep on the bedside table without worrying which page you were at the night before – I recommend this excellent little book, which is full of fascinating and witty definitions of words such as euphuism and orphism.
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Their mutual communication was all conducted in a peculiar style of language, the natural deterioration of which was into a kind of euphuism, such as
Classic French Course in English William Cleaver Wilkinson
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(1600-1700) in which it flourished, and that bore in England the name of "euphuism".
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913
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Peele's "Arraignment of Paris, a Pastorall" is a court drama in the style of Lilly, intended to flatter the Queen, "poor in action but all the richer in gallant phrases, provided with songs, one in Italian, and with all kinds of love scenes between shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs and terrestrial gods"; the diction is interesting, because it shows revolt from the prevailing "euphuism," and therefore Peele must be given the praise of first opposing Lilly's affected style.
The Critics Versus Shakspere A Brief for the Defendant Francis Asbury Smith 1876
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| possibility that "euphuism" should have been used, rather |
Tolstoy on Shakespeare A Critical Essay on Shakespeare Leo Tolstoy 1869
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But 'boobtube' is by far my favorite euphuism for it.
Gary Roszko: Gather Around the Television Children, It's Time for Dinner Gary Roszko 2012
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There has long been speculation about Justice Souter who has been termed a “Confirmed Bachelor” which is often euphuism and has nothing to do with his relationship with his bishop.
"This Supreme Court is quite clearly the enemy of progressivism.... What is to be done?" Ann Althouse 2008
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There — I must stop describing you, or I shall catch the infection of your own euphuism, and talk of you as you would have talked of Sidney or of Spenser, or of that Swan of
Westward Ho! 2007
qms commented on the word euphuism
The voter is bored with me-tooism,
Impatient with faux folksy truism.
He longs for much more
Like great days of yore
When orators mastered euphuism.
May 23, 2017