aeolism

plural aeolisms

1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of Aeolism.

   In winter, too, There is grand aeolism upon my hills, When the blast sweeps the pine-boughs, and wails forth In long-drawn sobs and shrieking semitones.

   1904, Edmund James Mills, The secret of Petrarch, page 100

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   Examines features of Homeric language, especially the question of aeolisms and fixed epithets, and concludes that some Homeric words were preserved from the Mycenaean age as a result of oral epic technique, a conclusion later supported by decipherment of Linear B.

   1991, Thomas J. Sienkewicz, The Classical Epic: An Annotated Bibliography, page 84

   After them we have the minor climatic characteristics (texture, irrigation, vegetation, aeolism), namely those determined by the atmosphere, which thus forms the intermediary between the major and minor features.

   1913, W. Rickmer Rickmers, The Duab of Turkestan

plural Aeolisms · alternative aeolism

1. uncountableThe use of the Aeolic language or its syntactic structures.

   It should be remarked that Aeolism in Homer is seen not so much in a general modification of the Ionic dialect, as in the occasional employment of the forms and flexions regarded as characteristic of the Aeolic.

   1876, William Walker Merry, James Riddell, Homer's Odyssey - Volume 1, page 196

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   This approach, however, of Aeolians to Ionians is ambiguous and accidental, and historical indications go far to show that their distinction was all but primitive; that Dorism developed independently from an Aeolism with which Ionism was already in marked contrast, at some point of earlier departure, rather than that Ionism and Dorism together were collateral shoots from an original main Aeolic stem.

   1875, William Watkiss Lloyd, The age of Pericles, a history of the politics and arts of Greece

2. countableA usage of Aeolic within a work in another language.

   This ending may also be considered a mere Ionism or an Aeolism.

   2012, Maren Niehoff, Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters, →ISBN, page 202

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   Cassola regards the short form as an Aeolism (cf. Chantraine I, 161-3), which from an epic point of view would be an archaism.

   1978, Johannes Van Eck, The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, page 23

plural Aeolisms · alternative aeolism

1. uncountableA fictional religion in the works of Jonathan Swift that worships the wind in general, and rhetorical form over substance in particular.

   Of course Aeolism is only a satirical invention, but it has a general application to all absurd philosophising (also to 'common sense' - a terrifying twist, this, uniquely Swiftian).

   1975, Derek Kenneth Collett Todd, I am not Prince Hamlet, page 52

2. broadlyuncountableA tendency toward rhetorical embellishments.

   Aeolism, or the emphasis on the form or sound of words per se rather than on their meaning or sense, presently flourishes under many dignified guises.

   1965, Arnold M. Ludwig, The importance of lying, page 120

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   After the pipes have their final victory over the Aeolistic William, Peter Stuyvesant comes to the head of the state. His measures against Aeolism are swift: he gives his councilors "abundance of fair long pipes" (p. 248) and makes "a hideous rout among the ingenious inventions and expedients of his learned predecessor -- demolishing his flag-staffs and wind-mills" (pp. 248-249).

   1992, David Durant, “Aeolism in Knickerbocker's A History of New York”, in On Humor

   Participant scores on one of the five personality traits, “Aeolism,” were consistently described as low compared with the other group members in all conditions.

   2012 August, Tyler G Okimoto, Amy Wrzesniewski, “Effort in the face of difference: Feeling like a non-prototypical group member motivates effort”, in European Journal of Social Psychology, volume 42, number 5

3. countableA reference to or instance of wind; windiness.

   'Aeolisms abound in the course of the episode; 'big blow out,' 'the vent of his jacket,' 'windfall when he kicks out,' etc."

   1996, Kevin J. H. Dettmar, The Illicit Joyce of Postmodernism: Reading Against the Grain, →ISBN