Leonine

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Leonine \Le"o*nine\ (l[=e]"[-o]*n[imac]n), a. [L. leoninus, fr.
     leo, leonis, lion: cf. F. l['e]onin. See {Lion}.]
     Pertaining to, or characteristic of, the lion; as, a leonine
     look; leonine rapacity. -- {Le"o*nine*ly}, adv.
     [1913 Webster]
  


     {Leonine verse}, a kind of verse, in which the end of the
        line rhymes with the middle; -- so named from Leo, or
        Leoninus, a Benedictine and canon of Paris in the twelfth
        century, who wrote largely in this measure, though he was
        not the inventor. The following line is an example:
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  leonine
       adj : of or characteristic of or resembling a lion

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  LEONINE, adj.  Unlike a menagerie lion.  Leonine verses are those in
  which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as
  in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
  
      The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.
      Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores:  "O tempora! O mores!"
  
      It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to
  teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues.  Leonine verses
  are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to
  find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a
  rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.