mimiamb

plural mimiambs

1. rareAncient GreeceliteratureA short humorous dramatic scene in verse.

   Matius's mimiambs have not survived complete, but the extant remains may not be unrepresentative of his general style of writing.

   2014, Costas Panayotakis, “Hellenistic Mime and Its Reception in Rome”, in Michael Fontaine, Adele C. Scafuro, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 387

   2 more examples

   Its discovery, after a sleep of some five centuries and a half, will be as great a surprise to meteorologists as a new classical text, such as the ‘Mimiambs’ of Herondas, to Greek scholars.

   1891 November 28, The Athenæum, number 3344, London: J. Lection, →OCLC, page 726

   For example, the school scene in the third mimiamb, the outburst of fierce jealousy on the part of Bitinna in Herondas and that of the Oxyrhynchus μοιχευτρία, the obscene conversation in the sixth mimiamb, and the tales of adultery committed by women which, according to Aristocles, formed the chief subject of the poems recited by the λυσιῳδοί.

   1917, Ph[ilippe] E[rnest] Legrand, translated by James Loeb, The New Greek Comedy, London: W. Heinemann; New York, N.Y.: G.P. Putnam's Sons, →OCLC, page 524

   Synonyms: mimiambus