1595–1605; < Latin Fescennīnus of, belonging to Fescennia, a town in Etruria noted for jesting and scurrilous verse; see -ine 1
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The original Fescennine verse appears, from the testimony of Horace, to have been in metrical dialogue.
From The Roman Poets of the Republic by Sellar, W. Y.
While you lived, taste kept the French drama pure; and it was the congenial business of English playwrights to foist their rustic grossness and their large Fescennine jests into the urban page of Moliere.
From Letters to Dead Authors by Lang, Andrew
But the original satura, which also was familiar to the Romans before they became acquainted with Greek literature, was somewhat different both from the Fescennine verses, and from the lampoons which arose out of them.
From The Roman Poets of the Republic by Sellar, W. Y.
Nor is there any analogy between the religious hymns, or the Fescennine verses of Italy, and the modern ballad.
From The Roman Poets of the Republic by Sellar, W. Y.
His mind cast about, not for ways of excusing Sally—the idea!—but of whitewashing his mother, without seeming to suggest that her own mind had anything Fescennine about it.
From Somehow Good by De Morgan, William Frend
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