centauresque

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

centaur +‎ -esque

Adjective[edit]

centauresque (comparative more centauresque, superlative most centauresque)

  1. Having attributes like those of the mythical centaur.
    • 2011, Gérard Gavarry, Jane Kuntz, Making a Novel, page 60:
      More distrustful and irritable than ever, in this section, this watchdog character was to be obsessed with the centauresque likeness of my four boys.
    • 1911, "The Centaurs", The Nation: Volume 92, page 212:
      Here they take on their true centauresque form, each one mounting a hired courser and clattering through the town in the direction of the Wood of Verrières.
  2. By extension, having the characteristics of two things combined together; hybridized; chimeric.
    • 2007, Patricia Kathleen Page, Zailig Pollock, The Filled Pen: Selected Non-fiction, page 68:
      Message and method merge, centauresque, to assist him.
    • 1993, Albert Russell Ascoli, Victoria Ann Kahn, Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, page 252:
      Machiavelli begins chapter 26 by asking if the times are right for a "new prince" in Italy, one "prudente e virtuoso," like Borgia, like the profeta armato, like the hybrid centauresque monster to be composed of Machiavelli's counsel and Medicean power.
    • 1863, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Greek Christian poets and the English poets, page 160:
      We are of opinion in any way, that the grace is more obvious than the strength ; and there may be something centauresque and of twofold nature in their rushing mutabilities, and changes on passion and weakness.

French[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

centauresque (plural centauresques)

  1. centauresque
    • 1998, Mētis, volume 13, page 365:
      Par l’ouverture de la jarre, Héraclès bouleverse l’espace centauresque.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 2015, Martine Hermant, Les Contes de la Licorne, page 77:
      L’enchanteresse les suit et tous les centauresques derrière eux.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)