alexandrine

plural alexandrines · alternative Alexandrine

1. communicationsA line of poetic meter having twelve syllables, usually divided into two or three equal parts.

   The dominant metre in Les Fleurs du Mal is the twelve-syllable alexandrine, the defining metre of French versification, with the eight-syllable line a distant runner-up and the ten-syllable line barely visible.

   2005, Rachel Killick, “Baudelaire's versification: conservative or radical?”, in Rosemary Lloyd, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 52

   Synonyms: Alexandrian

comparative more Alexandrine · superlative most Alexandrine

1. Of or relating to Alexandria.

   Dioscorus sent a man there called Eutyches, a monk—monks had been too useful to Alexandrine politics to be abandoned.

   1968, The Eastern Churches Quarterly, volume 4, page 232

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   The division of Scholz himself, in the work last named, is into the Alexandrine and Constantinopolitan recension. […] But in amalgamating the Alexandrine and Western Mss. together, he has done not a little violence to both. Moreover, taking the fact as true, which Eusebius has related in respect to his making out fifty copies of the New Testament for the churches at Constantinople, in the time of Constantine; and the fact also that Eusebius is known, by the quotations in his works, to have given a preference to the Alexandrine copies; how can the superiority or even the discrepancy of the Constantinopolitan class of Mss. in respect to the Alexandrine, be so definitely made out?

   1836, [Johann Leonhard] Hug, translated by David Fosdick Jr., edited by M[oses] Stuart, Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament, Andover: […] Gould and Newman, page 686

   In Peking he teamed up with a junior partner in the wool concern, a melancholy multi-lingual Alexandrine Greek who joined him from a trip to India on other business for the firm, for a fortnight’s concentrated talks with various corporation chiefs.

   1984, Roger Milliss, Serpent’s Tooth: An Autobiographical Novel, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 185

   Synonyms: Alexandrian

plural Alexandrines

1. A native or inhabitant of Alexandria.

   The Alexandrines considered themselves Greeks and Macedonians. And, as a matter of fact, it does not seem likely that there was any considerable infusion of native Egyptian blood in the Alexandrines.

   1927, Edwyn Bevan, A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. […], page 98

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   The Alexandrines, proud of their sophistication, claimed that the Cairenes were provincial, the Cairo girls somewhat dowdy; their petticoats showed below their dresses, and they boasted that the really beautiful Cairo girls all married in Alexandria. To prove their point, Alexandrines invariably mentioned the celebrated Quatour Fleuri, four beautiful young brides, all Cairo born, who had all married Alexandrian men—and were supposed to have acquired that extra chic in Alexandria.

   a. 1980, Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, edited by Deborah A. Starr and Sasson Somekh, Mongrels or Marvels: The Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, Stanford University Press, published 2011, →ISBN

   Nestorius retired to his monastery; from there he was banished first to Petra in modern Jordan, and then to the deserts of Upper Egypt where he was persecuted by Egyptian monks and taken prisoner by hostile nomads. The affair was as much political as theological—the Romans and Alexandrines were jealous of his influence as patriarch of Constantinople—but it led to permanent schisms.

   2002, Brian Moynahan, The Faith: A History of Christianity, Image Books, Doubleday, published 2003, →ISBN, page 126

   Before that point perhaps only a third of the empire’s inhabitants were Roman citizens.⁴ The remainder were either foreigners (peregrini) or had one or other of a range of statuses that can be thought of as part citizenships, among them Latins, Junian Latins, Alexandrines and the former slaves of Roman citizens.

   2021, Greg Woolf, Miguel John Versluys, “Empire as a field of religious action”, in Jörg Rüpke, Greg Woolf, editors, Religion in the Roman Empire, Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer GmbH, →ISBN, page 25

   Synonyms: Alexandrian

comparative more Alexandrine · superlative most Alexandrine

1. Of or relating to Alexander the Great.

   In a few months, he [Antigonus I Monophthalmus] had leapt from being one satrap among many to a contender for Alexandrine supremacy, and doubtless that, or something like it, was exactly what was on his mind.

   2011, Robin Waterfield, Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 72–73

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   When we picture to ourselves his [Napoleon’s] dawning military genius at Toulon—his daring and decided politics in the storms of the Revolution—his Cæsarian ambition in assuming the purple—his rivalry of Hannibal in urging an army, with heavy artillery, over the frozen and apparently impassable summits of the very Alps crossed by the Carthaginian General—[…]—his Alexandrine bravery on many a bloody field, as well as his Alexandrine temerity, in warring against the elements themselves—[…]—when (we say) we picture to our imagination these, and many other scenes of Napoleon’s “strange eventful history,” we are apt to be dazzled with the splendour of his arms and the lustre of his fame!

   1829 March, “Napoleon a Sainte Helene. Opinion d’un Medecin sur la Maladie de l’Empereur Napoleon, et sur la Cause de sa Mort; offerte a son Fils, au Jour de sa Majorite. Par S. Hereau, […]”, in James Johnson, editor, The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine, volume X, number XX, London: […] S. Highley, […], page 434

   Have you not read somewhere of a Philip of Macedon and an Alexander of Macedonia, whom the Greeks looked down upon because he had not been born farther south, and yet who built up the best army of ancient times? Macedonia, the beginning of the great Alexandrine Empire, and birthplace of the Emperor Constantine, has stood in the midst of the Balkan countries as they have come out of the Stygian darkness of Turkish rule, as Bulgaria and Servia and Roumania and Greece became first little principalities and in our days kingdoms—as they have risen out of their dreadful servitude, Macedonia remained under the Turks.

   1914, Albert Bushnell Hart, “The Balkan War”, in Addresses Delivered Before the Canadian Club of Ottawa, page 97

   The more enterprising elements tended to emigrate to overseas centres of Hellenism, and colonies, especially after the Alexandrine conquests, while in Greece itself there were destructive wars and class conflicts.

   1977, Paul Johnson, Enemies of Society, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, page 15

   Synonyms: Alexandrian

plural Alexandrines

1. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of Alexandrine parakeet.

   He is hardly distinguishable from an ordinary cock Alexandrine except for his slightly smaller size and rather less massive head and beak—the latter a distinct improvement.

   1950, Edward Boosey, “Breeding Results at the Keston Foreign Bird Farm”, in The Avicultural Magazine, volumes 56–57, page 19

   2 more examples

   My own experiences of a liberty Alexandrine were of a very different nature. One Christmas Eve, above the pre-dusk cacophony which will be heard in any collection of parrots, I detected an unfamiliar voice. I soon sighted an Alexandrine flying towards the neighbouring garden.

   1980, Rosemary Low, Parrots: Their Care and Breeding, Blandford Press, →ISBN, page 222

   The nominate Alexandrine has green plumage and an immense beak. As with many of the ringnecked variety, color mutations are becoming more available, including lutino (yellow) and blue. The Alexandrine has five distinct subspecies, some slightly larger or smaller than the nominate bird.

   2005, Nikki Moustaki, Parrots For Dummies®, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

plural Alexandrines

1. Alternative letter-case form of alexandrine.

   In some cases these are composed of trimeter couplets; that is, with the pause after the third foot; in others, they are true Alexandrines, with pauses after the second, seventh, eighth, or tenth syllable.

   1891, James C[hallis] Parsons, English Versification for the Use of Students, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn, page 98

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   Some of these Alexandrines are well marked, in others the last word has such a strong accent on the last syllable but two that both final syllables fall on the ear rather as an addition to the last measure, a mere superfluous syllable, than a distinct measure by themselves.

   1871, Alexander J[ohn] Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, […], part III ([…]), London: […] [F]or the Philological Society by Asher & Co., London and Berlin, and for the Early English Text Society, and the Chaucer Society, by Trübner & Co., […], page 943

   In all these matters each man did as he liked—some used prose, some blank, some frequent short lines, some none at all: some weak-endings, some trisyllabic feet, some female endings, some Alexandrines; but none of these things were patent to the public.

   1881, C[lement] M[ansfield] Ingleby, Occasional Papers on Shakespeare: Being the Second Part of Shakespeare the Man and the Book, London: […] Josiah Allen, […] Trübner & Co., […], page 64

   A greater challenge to the domination of the Alexandrine was by Verlaine, who wrote lines that looked like Alexandrines according to a completely different (and arbitrary) set of rules: thirteen-syllable lines, eleven-syllable lines, twelve-syllable lines without caesura.

   2010, Joseph A. Dane, The Long and the Short of It: A Practical Guide to European Versification Systems, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN

1. A female given name from French.

   Alexandrine Ave., named for Alexandrine M. Willis, the wife of B. Campau, land owner (1863)

   2008, Kristin Palm, The Straits, Palm Press, →ISBN, page 21

   2 more examples

   Whoever will drink of an unadulterated stream must go to the fountain-head. This, Miss Laura Alexandrine Smith has done, and that she has drunk deeply, is easy to be seen from the spirit and enthusiasm with which she writes.

   1887 June, R. M. Ballantyne, “Introductory Note”, in Laura Alexandrine Smith, The Music of the Waters. […], London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., […], published 1888, page ix

   He teamed up with Amin and Iksander, named, Iksander said, for Alexander the Great. / Cool, John said. I read somewhere that the year he died, children all over the world were named for him. Alexander, Alexandrine, Alexandra.

   2010, Pearl Abraham, American Taliban, Random House, →ISBN, page 194