Pyrrhic

4 definitions found

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

  Pyrrhic \Pyr"rhic\, a. [L. pyrrhichius, Gr. ? belonging to the ?
     (sc. ?) a kind of war dance.]
     1. Of or pertaining to an ancient Greek martial dance. " ye
        have the pyrrhic dance as yet." --Byron.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. (Pros.) Of or pertaining to a pyrrhic, or to pyrrhics;
        containing pyrrhic; as, a pyrrhic verse.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Pyrrhic victory} [From Pyrrhus, king of Epirus.],
        (a) a victory in which the winning side sustains very
            heavy losses.
        (b) any act supposedly benefitting the actor, for which
            the costs outweight the benefits.
            [PJC]

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

  Pyrrhic \Pyr"rhic\, n.
     1. [Gr. ?: cf. F. pyrrhique, fem.] An ancient Greek martial
        dance, to the accompaniment of the flute, its time being
        very quick.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. [L. pyrrhichius (sc. pes), Gr. ? (sc. ?): cf. F.
        pyrrhique, masc.] (Pros.) A foot consisting of two short
        syllables.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  pyrrhic
       adj 1: of or relating to a war dance of ancient Greece; "pyrrhic
              dance movements"
       2: of or relating to or containing a metrical foot of two
          unstressed syllables; "pyrrhic verses"
       3: of or relating to or resembling Pyrrhus or his exploits
          (especially his sustaining staggering losses in order to
          defeat the Romans); "a Pyrrhic victory"
       n 1: a metrical unit with unstressed-unstressed syllables [syn: {dibrach}]
       2: an ancient Greek dance imitating the motions of warfare

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  87 Moby Thesaurus words for "pyrrhic":
     Alexandrine, accent, accentuation, amphibrach, amphimacer,
     anacrusis, anapest, antispast, antispastic, arsis, bacchius, beat,
     cadence, cadenced, caesura, catalexis, chloriamb, chloriambus,
     colon, counterpoint, cretic, dactyl, dactylic, dactylic hexameter,
     diaeresis, dimeter, dipody, dochmiac, elegiac, elegiac couplet,
     elegiac pentameter, emphasis, epitrite, feminine caesura, foot,
     heptameter, heptapody, heroic couplet, hexameter, hexapody, iamb,
     iambic, iambic pentameter, ictus, ionic, jingle, lilt,
     masculine caesura, measure, measured, meter, metric,
     metrical accent, metrical foot, metrical group, metrical unit,
     metron, molossus, mora, movement, numbers, paeon, pentameter,
     pentapody, period, proceleusmatic, prosodic, quantity, rhythm,
     rhythmic, scanning, spondaic, spondee, sprung rhythm, stress,
     swing, syzygy, tetrameter, tetrapody, tetraseme, thesis, tribrach,
     trimeter, tripody, triseme, trochaic, trochee