dithyrambic

comparative more dithyrambic · superlative most dithyrambic

1. Of, pertaining to, or resembling a dithyramb; especially, passionate, intoxicated with enthusiasm.

   Nevertheless, if one has time and, still more, the patience to search whole acres of dithyrambic prose, he shall have his reward.

   1915, William Forbes Gray, Some Old Scots Judges: Anecdotes and Impressions, →ISBN, page 25

   4 more examples

   Signor Papini, the leader of italian pragmatism, grows fairly dithyrambic over the view that it opens, of man's divinely-creative functions.

   1907, William James, Pragmatism

   Bradly was out of bed, blundering across the floor to kneel by her and pat reassurance on her satin-smooth shoulders. She gripped him with both arms, holding him tight against the convulsive shudder that rejected terror in the security of his arms. Confounded by a dithyrambic conflict of fear and exultation, Bradly could only snatch at one coherent thought, "Damme, after the old bitch accusin' me..."

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 236

   ... thighs appear to be continuously alighting and pausing in mid-air, detached from their dithyrambic owners, like luminous birds on the wing.

   1985, Paul Binding, Harmonica's Bridegroom, →ISBN, page 131

   The dithyrambic chorus is a chorus of transformed people, for whom their social past, their civic position, is entirely forgotten.

   2000, Ian C. Johnston, The Birth of Tragedy http://books.google.com/books?id=ufCCJUFo-LMC by Friedrich Nietzsche, page 104

plural dithyrambics

1. A dithyramb.

   1775, Anonymous, review of the West translation of Pindar's Olympic Odes, in The Critical Review, volume 40, page 451, As we have no remains of the dithyrambics of the ancients, we cannot exactly ascertain the measure.