Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to agriculture or rural life.
  • noun A poem concerning farming or rural life.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating to agriculture and rural affairs; agricultural.
  • noun A poem on agriculture or rural affairs: as, the Georgics of Virgil.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A rural poem; a poetical composition on husbandry, containing rules for cultivating lands, etc..
  • adjective Relating to agriculture and rural affairs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A rural poem; a poetical composition on husbandry, containing rules for cultivating land, etc.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin geōrgicus, from Greek geōrgikos, from geōrgos, farmer : geō-, geo- + ergon, work; see werg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin georgicum

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Examples

  • I am hurrying on to Rome, and I have no time to write a georgic.

    The Path to Rome Hilaire Belloc 1911

  • He had collected his scattered odes and ballads, and published them, with his ambitious georgic, _The Hop Garden_, in the handsome quarto before us.

    Gossip in a Library Edmund Gosse 1888

  • Being -- a mere didactic phrase, the deity of a poet's georgic -- should adequately replace that eternal marvel of construction, by means of which the great churchmen had wrought dogma and liturgy and priest and holy office into every hour and every mood of men's lives.

    Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) Essay 1: Robespierre John Morley 1880

  • Such unpoetic toils never could have inspired the georgic muse of Vergil or Thomson.

    The Awakening of China 1871

  • In this poem, completed and published in 1713, he proceeded, as Virgil had done, from the pastoral vein to the georgic and celebrated the rule of Queen Anne as the Latin poet had celebrated the rule of Augustus.

    Encyclopædia Britannica Online Quote of the Day 2008

  • In this poem, completed and published in 1713, he proceeded, as Virgil had done, from the pastoral vein to the georgic and celebrated the rule of Queen Anne as the Latin poet had celebrated the rule of Augustus.

    Encyclopædia Britannica Online Quote of the Day 2008

  • In this poem, completed and published in 1713, he proceeded, as Virgil had done, from the pastoral vein to the georgic and celebrated the rule of Queen Anne as the Latin poet had celebrated the rule of Augustus.

    Encyclopædia Britannica Online Quote of the Day 2008

  • In this poem, completed and published in 1713, he proceeded, as Virgil had done, from the pastoral vein to the georgic and celebrated the rule of Queen Anne as the Latin poet had celebrated the rule of Augustus.

    Encyclopædia Britannica Online Quote of the Day 2008

  • In this poem, completed and published in 1713, he proceeded, as Virgil had done, from the pastoral vein to the georgic and celebrated the rule of Queen Anne as the Latin poet had celebrated the rule of Augustus.

    Encyclopædia Britannica Online Quote of the Day 2008

  • But either Mistress Jean's influx of caution came too late, and someone had overheard her suggestion, or the idea was already abroad in the mind bucolic and georgic, for that very night it began to be reported upon the nearer farms, that the Mains of Glashruach was haunted by a brownie who did all the work for both men and maids -- a circumstance productive of different opinions with regard to the desirableness of a situation there, some asserting they would not fee to it for any amount of wages, and others averring they could desire nothing better than a place where the work was all done for them.

    Sir Gibbie George MacDonald 1864

Comments

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  • To make a point that's likely to stick
    Compose some lines pithy and quick.
    Not verse pedagogic
    Or, worse yet, a georgic.
    Be memorably rude with a limerick.

    June 28, 2014

  • What on earth are you talking about

    In these prime-rhyming lines that you spout?

    They're surely much worse

    Than classical verse...

    Or are you some kind of lamerick devout?

    June 29, 2014

  • Sorry, couldn't resist :-P

    June 29, 2014

  • This morning I opened my email, checked into Wordnik, and found myself addressed (Chided? Admonished? Chastised?) in no less than three limericks sent from Australia. What's going on down there?

    It's true I think the georgic is gaseous

    But bilby seems a militant classicist.

    No feelings are harmed,

    And though I'm well-armed

    He's lucky I'm a limerical pacifist.

    June 29, 2014