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leonine |
3 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Leonine \Le"o*nine\ (l[=e]"[-o]*n[imac]n), a. [L. leoninus fr leo, leonis, lion: cf F. l['e]onin. See {Lion}.] Pertaining to or characteristic of the lion; as a leonine look leonine rapacity. -- {Le"o*nine*ly}, adv {Leonine verse}, a kind of verse, in which the end of the line rhymes with the middle; -- so named from Leo, or Leoninus a Benedictine and canon of Paris in the twelfth century, who wrote largely in this measure, though he was not the inventor. The following line is an example: Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: leonine adj : of or characteristic of or resembling a lion From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]: LEONINE, adj Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox: The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!" It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line
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