Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
An ornate style of writing (in Elizabethan England) marked by the excessive use of alliteration, antithesis and mythological similes.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: historical, rhetoric, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
An instance of euphuism.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Misconstruction of euphemism.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, countable, misconstruction, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Alternative letter-case form of euphuism.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
an elegant style of prose of the Elizabethan period; characterized by balance and antithesis and alliteration and extended similes with and allusions to nature and mythology
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: prose
noun
any artificially elegant style of language
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: expressive style, style
Narrower terms: Gongorism
History
From Euphues (Ancient Greek ευφυής (euphuḗs, “graceful, witty”)) + -ism, after the titular character in John Lyly’s didactic romance Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578). Lyly adopted the name from Roger Ascham’s The Scholemaster (published 1570), which describes Euphues as a type of student who is “apte by goodness of witte, and appliable by readiness of will, to learning, hauving all other qualities of the mind and parts of the body, that must an other day serue learning, not troubled, mangled, and halfed, but sound, whole, full & able to do their office”.
Across languages
9 source translations are retained for this English entry.
