Alcaic

American  

[al-key-ik] / ælˈkeɪ ɪk /

adjective

1. pertaining to Alcaeus or to certain meters or a form of strophe or stanza used by, or named after, him.

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noun

1. Alcaics, Alcaic verses or strophes.

Alcaic British  

/ ælˈkeɪɪk /

adjective

1. of or relating to a metre used by the 7th-century _bc Greek lyric poet Alcaeus, consisting of a strophe of four lines each with four feet

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noun

1. (usually plural) verse written in the Alcaic form

Etymology

Origin of Alcaic

1620–30; < Late Latin Alcaicus < Greek Alkaïkós, equivalent to Alka ( îos ) Alcaeus + -ikos -ic

Example Sentences

Of these, four are in hendecasyllabics, one in the Alcaic and one in the Sapphic stanza.

From The Student's Companion to Latin Authors by Middleton, George

‘With the principal lyric metres, the Sapphic and Alcaic, Horace had done what Vergil had accomplished with the dactylic hexameter, carried them to the highest point of which the foreign Latin tongue was capable.’

From Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Luce, Edmund

“I didn’t mean it to be like your ‘September, October, November’; I was imitating, not Horace, but the original Greek Alcaic, though Horace’s is perhaps the finest metre.”

From Tennyson and His Friends by Various

Thus his great metre, the Alcaic, has a character of stateliness and majesty in addition to the energy and impetus originally imparted to it by Alcaeus.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 6 "Home, Daniel" to "Hortensius, Quintus" by Various

The two Latin metres which I have more than once heard him admire were the Hexameter and the Alcaic.

From Tennyson and His Friends by Various