Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A short poem or prose piece depicting a rural or pastoral scene, usually in idealized terms.
- noun A narrative poem treating an epic or romantic theme.
- noun A scene or event of a simple and tranquil nature.
- noun A carefree episode or experience.
- noun A romantic interlude.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any
poem or short written piece composed in the style of Theocritus's shortpastoral poems, the Idylls. - noun An
episode or series of events or circumstances ofpastoral orrural simplicity , fit for an idyll; acarefree orlighthearted experience . - noun music A
composition , usuallyinstrumental , of a pastoral orsentimental character, e.g. Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an episode of such pastoral or romantic charm as to qualify as the subject of a poetic idyll
- noun a musical composition that evokes rural life
- noun a short poem descriptive of rural or pastoral life
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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In so far as the idyll is a signifier to which a real world referent can be attached -- pre-industrial culture, medieval society, etc. -- we might be dubious of a restoration that is essentially an act of validation.
Narrative Grammars Hal Duncan 2008
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In so far as the idyll is a signifier to which a real world referent can be attached -- pre-industrial culture, medieval society, etc. -- we might be dubious of a restoration that is essentially an act of validation.
Archive 2008-01-01 Hal Duncan 2008
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However much we can all appreciate the arguments in favour of renting, most of us still hanker after the long-term idyll of bricks, mortar and a white picket fence.
Are we better off renting? Elizabeth Day 2010
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But the idyll is soon broken when the past rushes back to threaten the Amnipours once more, and the lives they left behind in revolution-era Iran bleed into the present.
Pomegranate Soup: Summary and book reviews of Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran. 2005
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However, the tourist idyll is a façade and, in fact, Jelinek depicts a camouflaged dead landscape where neither the past nor the future exists.
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The idyll is very short lived, however, and paradise is lost when Inkle returns with Yarico to Jamaica where he attempts to sell her into slavery.
Savage Boundaries 2002
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Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery-but their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover.
White Oleander: Summary and book reviews of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. 1999
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But the idyll is short lived as Hanna disappears from his life, only to resurface in a courtroom where she is being tried for iniquitous past which she had hidden from him.
The Times of India 2009
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But the idyll is short lived as Hanna disappears from his life, only to resurface in a courtroom where she is being tried for iniquitous past which she had hidden from him.
The Times of India 2009
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This idyll is short-lived as the elephantine squall of S.O.S. rears its panicky, hard-riffing head.
The Line Of Best Fit 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word idyll
If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another –
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existence would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
-- W.S. Gilbert, Ruddigore
August 21, 2008