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• fescennine
  fescennine

  adjective

  scurrilous; licentious; obscene.
• Fescennine
  Fescennine

  adjective

  scurrilous or obscene

fescennine

American  

[fes-uh-nahyn, -nin] / ˈfɛs əˌnaɪn, -nɪn /

adjective

1. scurrilous; licentious; obscene.

   fescennine mockery.

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Fescennine British  

/ ˈfɛsɪˌnaɪn /

adjective

1. rare scurrilous or obscene

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Etymology

Origin of fescennine

1595–1605; < Latin Fescennīnus of, belonging to Fescennia, a town in Etruria noted for jesting and scurrilous verse; see -ine ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fescennine Fescennine

Here rang out the joyous conversation, interspersed with the Latin epithalamium of some impromptu poet, or the fescennine verses of a German minnesinger.

From Peter the Priest by Mór Jókai

From Suckling we should have had a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited to the subject.

From The Lucasta Poems by Richard Lovelace

The original Fescennine verse appears, from the testimony of Horace, to have been in metrical dialogue.

From The Roman Poets of the Republic by W. Y. Sellar

The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.

From Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay

So I snapped the stem of my glass carefully, and scowled with morose disapproval at the unconscious Mr. Travis, and his now-applauded and very Fescennine jest….

From The Cords of Vanity A Comedy of Shirking by James Branch Cabell

The Fescennine Songs were the origin of the Satire, the only important species of literature not derived from the Greeks, and altogether peculiar to Italy.

From A Smaller History of Rome by Sir William Smith

These are of the Fescennine ranks and of Aequi Falisci, these of Soracte's fortresses and the fields of Flavina, and Ciminus' lake and hill, and the groves of Capena.

From The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil