Dionysiac
Americanadjective
-
of or relating to Dionysus or his worship
-
a less common word for Dionysian
Other Word Forms
- Dionysiacally adverb
Etymology
Origin of Dionysiac
1820–30; < Latin Dionȳsiacus < Greek Dionȳsiakós, equivalent to Diónȳs ( os ) Dionysus + -i- derivative stem vowel + -akos -ac
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But for those who love McLean’s music, it’s essential listening; it captures his full, overtone-rich in-concert sound as well as his explosive solos, which, at times, reach a Dionysiac frenzy.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 27, 2018
A marble head of a deity wearing a Dionysiac fillet, from the first century A.D.
From The New Yorker • Oct. 22, 2018
Dynamic his “Birds” undeniably is, and Dionysiac in a way New Yorkers have seldom seen since the heyday of the boundary-busting Living Theater in the 1960s.
From New York Times • May 6, 2018
Yet these Dionysiac suggestions are kept in bizarrely firm Apollonian check by Mr. Morris’s virtually plotless choreography.
From New York Times • Jun. 16, 2013
“Do you remember last fall, in Julian’s class, when we studied what Plato calls telestic madness? Bakcheia? Dionysiac frenzy?”
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
