homeric

comparative more homeric · superlative most homeric

1. Alternative letter-case form of Homeric.

   At home he [John Ruskin] looks young & rompish at the meeting, at Hunts meeting he looked old & ungainly, but his power & eloquence as a speaker were homeric.

   1857 March 16, Ford Madox Brown, “1857 [chapter title]”, in Virginia Surtees, editor, The Diary of Ford Madox Brown (Studies in British Art), New Haven, Conn.; London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, published 1981, →ISBN, page 195

   1 more example

   In San Francisco there was a barroom for every one hundred inhabitants. Here beer and bourbon fought a homeric battle for the hearts and throats of the thin line of patriots who balanced on the city's brass rails and voluntarily gave the national debt a lift.

   1963 winter, Gerald Carson, “The Dark Age of American Drinking”, in The Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 39, number 1, Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia, →OCLC, page 99

comparative more Homeric · superlative most Homeric · alternative homeric · alternative Homerick

1. Resembling or relating to the epic poetry of Homer.

   In the beginning of the Fourth Book the poet [John Milton] introduces an Homerick cluster of similes; which seems to mark an intention of bestowing more poetical decoration on the conclusion of the Poem, than on the preceding parts of it.

   1852, Henry John Todd, “Preliminary Observations on Paradise Regained”, in The Poetical Works of John Milton. With Notes of Various Authors; and with some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, Derived Principally from Original Documents in Her Majesty’s State-paper Office. … In Four Volumes, 5th edition, volume III, London: Rivingtons [et al.], →OCLC, page xv

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   The warmeſt admirers of the great Mantuan poet [Virgil] can extol him for little more than the ſkill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyſſey in one compoſition: yet his judgment was perhaps ſometimes overborne, by his avarice of the Homeric treaſures; and, for fear of ſuffering a ſparkling ornament to be loſt, he has inſerted it where it cannot ſhine with its original ſplendor.

   1751 May 14, [Samuel Johnson], “[Echoes and Imitators]”, in The Rambler, volume V, number 121, Edinburgh: Printed by Sands, Murray, and Cochran; sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright, J. Yair, and other booksellers, →OCLC, pages 132–133; The Rambler. In Four Volumes, 14th edition, volume III, number 121, London: Printed by A[ndrew] Strahan, Printers-Street, for J. Johnson [et al.], 1801, →OCLC, page 97

   We, having obtained knowledge of the early derivation and distribution of mankind, and of the primitive religion, from sources other than those open to Homer, shall find in this knowledge the lost counterpart of a great portion of the Homeric myths. The theological and Messianic traditions which we find recorded in Scripture, when compared with the Homeric theogony, will be found to correspond with a large and important part of it: […]

   1858, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “Sect. I. On the Mixed Character of the Supernatural System, or Theo-Mythology, of Homer.”, in Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. … In Three Volumes, volume II (Olympus: Or, The Religion of the Homeric Age), Oxford: At the University Press, →OCLC, pages 29–30

   In some respects Homeric society is clearly an artificial literary creation. It is a natural tendency of all heroic epic to exaggerate the social status and behaviour of everyone involved, so that characters appear generally to belong to the highest social class and to possess great wealth and extraordinary abilities, in implicit contrast with the inequalities and squalor of the present age.

   1993, Oswyn Murray, “The End of the Dark Age: The Aristocracy”, in Early Greece, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 35

   Synonyms: Homerical, Homerican

2. Of or pertaining to Greece during the Bronze Age, as described in Homer's works.

   Women are often carried away by force; and the whole tribe, as in Homeric times, rise to avenge the wrong.

   1860, Hugh Blair, “A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal”, in Ossian, translated by James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian; Translated by James Macpherson, Esq. to which are Prefixed a Preliminary Discourse and Dissertation on the Æra and Poems of Ossian, Boston, Mass.: Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Company, →OCLC, page 103

3. Fit to be immortalized in poetry by Homer; epic, heroic.

   At home he [John Ruskin] looks young & rompish at the meeting, at Hunts meeting he looked old & ungainly, but his power & eloquence as a speaker were homeric.

   1857 March 16, Ford Madox Brown, “1857 [chapter title]”, in Virginia Surtees, editor, The Diary of Ford Madox Brown (Studies in British Art), New Haven, Conn.; London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, published 1981, →ISBN, page 195

   1 more example

   In San Francisco there was a barroom for every one hundred inhabitants. Here beer and bourbon fought a homeric battle for the hearts and throats of the thin line of patriots who balanced on the city's brass rails and voluntarily gave the national debt a lift.

   1963 winter, Gerald Carson, “The Dark Age of American Drinking”, in The Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 39, number 1, Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia, →OCLC, page 99