Hipponactean

English

Etymology

From Hipponax +‎ -ean.

Adjective

Hipponactean (comparative more Hipponactean, superlative most Hipponactean)

1. Relating to or characteristic of the Ancient Greek poet Hipponax; (specifically) using choliambic verse.
   • 1983, Anne Pippin Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, London: Duckworth, →ISBN, page 101:

     The lines are vigorous and full of anger, and they be betray none of the usual Hipponactean buffoonery (unless the reference to 'eating slavish bread' echoes some previous abuse on the score of gluttony).

Noun

Hipponactean (plural Hipponacteans)

1. (poetry) A Hipponactean verse; (especially) a hypercatalectic form of Glyconian verse.
   • 1888, James Wood Davidson, The Poetry of the Future, New York, N.Y.: John B. Alden, page 30:

     We dismiss, at the outset, as unnecessary for our purpose, the long and learned-looking array of spondees, pyrrhics, trochees, dactyls, tribrachs and amphimacers with the endless but never nameless array of metres—dimeters, trimeters, Adonics, ithyphallics, Hipponacteans, and the rest; […]

Further reading

• “Hipponactean”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.