Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Made of gold and ivory, as certain pieces of sculpture or artwork in ancient Greece.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Composed of gold and ivory: specifically, in ancient art, applied to statues overlaid with plates of gold and ivory.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Composed of, or adorned with, gold and ivory.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Made of
gold andivory .
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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What boots it to tell that the arms and vesture of this "chryselephantine" statue are of pure gold; that the flesh portions are of gleaming ivory; that Phidias has wrought the whole so nobly together that this material, too sumptuous for common artists, becomes under his assembling the perfect substance for the manifestation of deity?
A Day in Old Athens; a Picture of Athenian Life William Stearns Davis 1903
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"chryselephantine;" that is, composed of ivory and gold; the parts representing flesh being of ivory laid on a core of wood or stone, while the drapery and other ornaments were of gold.
The Age of Fable Thomas Bulfinch 1831
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"chryselephantine;" that is, composed of ivory and gold; the parts representing flesh being of ivory laid on a core of wood or stone, while the drapery and other ornaments were of gold.
The Age of Fable Thomas Bulfinch 1831
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In the further wall was an alcove whose curtains, bestrung with pearls, were let down and I saw a light issuing therefrom; so I drew near and perceived that the light came from a precious stone as big as an ostrich egg, set at the upper end of the alcove upon a little chryselephantine couch of ivory and gold; and this jewel, blazing like the sun, cast its rays wide and side.
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Every pedestal that held a golden vase of peacock feathers or a priceless work of art was chryselephantine—delicately carved ivory inlaid with gold.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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Every pedestal that held a golden vase of peacock feathers or a priceless work of art was chryselephantine—delicately carved ivory inlaid with gold.
Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007
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I mean the kind of colossal gold and ivory “chryselephantine” in academic jargon creations that once dominated the inside of the Parthenon or the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.
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I mean the kind of colossal gold and ivory “chryselephantine” in academic jargon creations that once dominated the inside of the Parthenon or the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.
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Its moisture helped preserve the ivory of the chryselephantine colossus, though temple priests also burnished it with more oil daily.
See Delphi and Die Davis, Lindsey 2005
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It was a young woman in silvery satins of a Renascence design; she had golden hair in two long shining ropes, and a face so startingly pale between them that she might have been chryselephantine — made, that is, like some old Greek statues, out of ivory and gold.
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