Solomonic

comparative more Solomonic · superlative most Solomonic

1. Relating to or resembling Solomon, a king of Israel noted for his wisdom; wise.

   I did not want her to think that it was a foolish question, so I pretended to think and in a moment of Solomonic wisdom I said, "You know many rabbis have been asked this question and although some said Macintosh while others said Delicious, most of them encouraged a combination of both."

   2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 72

2. Resembling the Judgement of Solomon; involving the division of something between several groups with competing claims.

   Near-synonym: solonic

   3 more examples

   It is woth having regard in this context to its Solomonic solution to the language problem. During the Apartheid era, there were two official languages, both those of the white minority—English and Afrikaans. There was no majority language in the population of some 43 million people. To follow other former British colonies in Africa and adopt English as the sole official language would have been unacceptable to the six million Afrikaans-speaking South Africans (three million white and three million 'coloreds'). English was the home language of only three million South Africans […]. To retain both white languages as the official languages of post-Apartheid would have been demeaning of the nine main indigenous languages. The solution was the recognition of eleven official languages: the two 'white languages' and nine indigenous languages.

   2012 October 11, Anver M. Emon, Mark Ellis, Benjamin Glahn, Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law, OUP Oxford, →ISBN, page 367

   ... proposed the Solomonic solution of dividing Upper Silesia, which even as a least bad solution would “remix" the very peoples the plebiscite had sought to “unmix." Given the divided vote between urban and rural areas, and even within urban areas, no border could be drawn without leaving large numbers of Germans in Poland, or large numbers of Poles in Germany.

   2018 March 2, Leonard V. Smith, Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 241

   a Solomonic judgement

   Synonyms: solonic

3. Relating to the Solomon Islands.

   a Solomonic language

4. architectureTwisted helically.

   a Solomonic column

   Synonyms: barley-sugar