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Alcaic

[al-key-ik]
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adjective
  1. pertaining to Alcaeus or to certain meters or a form of strophe or stanza used by, or named after, him.
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noun
  1. Alcaics, Alcaic verses or strophes.
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Origin of Alcaic

1620–30; < Late Latin Alcaicus < Greek Alkaïkós, equivalent to Alka(îos) Alcaeus + -ikos -ic
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for alcaic

Historical Examples

  • The model of this variety is not to be found in any of the Alcaic or Tyrtæan remains.

    The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II.

    Various

  • He used to say, “The Horatian alcaic is, perhaps, the stateliest metre except the Virgilian hexameter at its best.”

  • On the other hand, we can find scarcely an ode in the Sapphic or Alcaic metre, which does not clearly betray its modern origin.

  • Somewhat as in the Greek alcaic, where the penultimate line seems to lift and suspend the wave that falls over in the last.

  • Virgilius Mars wrote in hexameters; Horatius Flaccus in alcaic, sapphic, and anapestic verse.

British Dictionary definitions for alcaic

Alcaic

adjective
  1. of or relating to a metre used by the 7th-century bc Greek lyric poet Alcaeus, consisting of a strophe of four lines each with four feet
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noun
  1. (usually plural) verse written in the Alcaic form
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Word Origin

C17: from Late Latin Alcaicus of Alcaeus
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012