Atticism

plural Atticisms · alternative obsolete Atticisme

1. uncountableancient historyAttachment to, collaboration with, favouring of, or siding with Athens or Athenians, especially in the context of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.E.).

   〃, § 8.38.3, page 489

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   The ſame Summer, the Thebans demoliſhed the walles of the Theſpians, laying Atticiſme to their charge.

   1628, Thucydides, translated by Thomas Hobbes, Eight Bookes Of the Peloponnesian Warre, reprint edition, published 1634, § 4.133.1, page 286

   Lysias and his brother were compelled to quit Thurii on the charge of Atticism (of taking the Athenian side in political questions) and they returned to Athens, which was then under the government of the Four Hundred.

   1837, Connop Thirlwall, A History of Greece, § IV.xxxi.7, page 188

2. The prestige dialect of Classical Greek, as spoken and written by the inhabitants of Attica (chiefly Athens) in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.; Attic Greek.
   1. countablesingularsingular onlyuncountablehistoryThe enduring rhetorical movement, begun in the 1st century B.C.E., whose members strove to emulate the style of the best Attic orators of that Classical period; especially in contrast with Asianism or Hellenism. (Its leading early proponent, Dionysius of Halicarnassus [c. 60–p. 7 B.C.E.], identified Lysias [c. 445–380 B.C.E.] as “the perfect model of the Attic dialect”, whose virtues he enumerates to be “purity of language, correct dialect, the presentation of ideas by means of standard, not figurative expressions; clarity, brevity, concision, terseness, vivid representation…, the pleasing arrangement of words after the manner of ordinary speech…, charm and a sense of timing which regulates everything else”.)
   2. broadlycountabledatedhistoricalsingularsingular onlyuncountablehistoryThe stylistic principles of Greek Atticism in application to other languages, especially to Latin.
   3. countablesingularsingular onlyAn expression or idiom characteristic of or peculiar to Attic Greek, especially an elegant and refined, if grammatically irregular, usage.

      By the Cardinals own confeſsion, this Agapetus liued at Conſtantinople in Iuſtinians time: where it was a great matter for him, no doubt, in ſo long time, to learn to make ſuch a Greek booke as this is; which yet for the ſtile and Atticiſmes, comes a great deale ſhort of Baronius commendation.

      1611, Thomas James, A Treatiſe of the Corruption of Scripture, Councels, and Fathers, § II.19, page 68

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      Her mistakes, if [Catalani] makes any, are perceptible only to the musical pedant who thinks a deviation from a scientific canon ill compensated by the most fanciful beauties of execution. Such a man would accuse Thucydides of false grammar on account of his atticisms, or Homer of incorrect quantity for the occasional artful protraction of a short syllable.

      1813 May 9th (Sunday), authorship uncertain, but probably Leigh Hunt or Thomas Barnes, “Theatrical Examiner, No. 137.”, in The Examiner, number 280, page 298/1

   4. broadlycountablesingularsingular onlyA refined felicity or well-turned phrase, especially one deemed ungrammatical. (In Newcome, aposiopesis, dislocation, and inverse attraction, respectively.)

      As for Ephraim, their glory ſhall flee away as a bird: which…form reſembles Salluſt’s plebs urbana ea vero præceps ierat [Bellum Catilinae 37.4]; and that common Atticiſm, urbem quam ſtatuo, veſtra eſt [Vergilius, Aeneis 1.573].

      1792, William Newcome, An Hiſtorical View of the Engliſh Biblical Tranſlations, chapter V, Rule XII., page 335

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      There while they acted, and overacted, among other young ſcholars, I was a ſpectator; they thought themſelves gallant men, and I thought them fools, they made ſport, and I laught, they miſpronounc’t and I miſlik’t, and to make up the atticiſme, they were out, and I hiſt.

      1642 April, John Milton, An Apology Againſt a Pamphlet Call’d A Modeſt Confutation of the Animadverſions upon the Remonſtrant againſt Smectymnuus., page 14

      There is an elegant Atticiſm which occurs Luke xiii. 9. “If it bear fruit, well.” We find this figure of ſpeech in the Chaldee, Dan. iii. 15; and, I think, in the Hebrew, Exod. xxxii. 32: “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their ſin, well.”

      1792, William Newcome, An Hiſtorical View of the Engliſh Biblical Tranſlations, chapter V, Rule II., page 279