Meanings
comparative more Hipponactean · superlative most Hipponactean
- Relating to or characteristic of the Ancient Greek poet Hipponax; (specifically) using choliambic verse.
The lines are vigorous and full of anger, and they be betray none of the usual Hipponactean buffoonery (unless the reference to 'eating slavish bread' echoes some previous abuse on the score of gluttony).
1983, Anne Pippin Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, London: Duckworth, →ISBN, page 101
plural Hipponacteans
- communicationsA Hipponactean verse; (especially) a hypercatalectic form of Glyconian verse.
We dismiss, at the outset, as unnecessary for our purpose, the long and learned-looking array of spondees, pyrrhics, trochees, dactyls, tribrachs and amphimacers with the endless but never nameless array of metres—dimeters, trimeters, Adonics, ithyphallics, Hipponacteans, and the rest; […]
1888, James Wood Davidson, The Poetry of the Future, New York, N.Y.: John B. Alden, page 30
Origin
Cite this entry
Hipponactean. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hipponactean
“Hipponactean.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hipponactean. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Hipponactean,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hipponactean.
Source: Hipponactean on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.