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.
2008 Update: Mewling in office.
Leonine, O cat of mine
ReplyDeleteOn birds and mice
You deign to dine
When really you prefer a can
Of Friskies cat chow
In a pan
Leonine - A kitty who sees a lion in the mirror
Leonine, hunts by night, sleeps by day.
ReplyDeleteNice kitty.
ReplyDeleteLeonine! I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteLeonine so called from Leoninus, a canon of the Church of St. Victor, in Paris, the inventor.
http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/leonine-verses.html
Leonine verses I might try but for here I'm very shy.
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Terry, a fine poem, well told and fair to cats.
ReplyDeleteAriel, how is that different from you vampires?
Icy, you've been misled.
Jim, whether what you claim is true, you seem an expert and none can blame you.
Actonbell, probably not but when I was in High School, I once read a short story by Edgar Allen Poe called "Lionizing" in lieu of whatever the assignment was. It's a satire on notoriety about a man who received short-lived acclaim because every day from childhood he pulled on his nose until it became leonine.
Leonine, adj. The Pope preceded by Leo VIII, and followed by Leo X.
ReplyDelete:-) ,,, still stuck between the lines...if thoughts were a dime we all would still be in our prime.(you don't get the dime if you are not in your prime)........................................still adding dots(one thousand is the goal)............................................................................................................peace
ReplyDeleteFond of lionizing.
ReplyDeleteInvades - Hades???
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't work for me.
Leonine: I can't think of anything for this word.
invades - Hades works for me in the broad uncultivated variant of the Australian accent.
ReplyDeleteleonine - I have enough problems with a simple ryhme.
You comments are rather messed up at time...
Just saying.
Aubvey thinks that Leo Nine is probably a football player. She's so cute. But she won't give me the time of day!
ReplyDeleteIn days of yor with thoughts divine, I'd have thought up a definition for leonine.
ReplyDeleteInternet still got you down?
A4g, howdy, old friend. Was Leo IX the Augsburg guy?
ReplyDeleteBrer Bear, by his dots you shall know him.
Actonbell, it isn't beautiful but kind of funny and short, which is its own kind of beauty. The last line is hilarious.
Meow, Hobbes. Subursine?
JD, that was kind of Bierce's joke. It only works for NATIVE Arkansawyers.
Thanks, Cooper. You're a trooper.
Fred, she's probably write.
Nope, g, morning.
As a good Captist, I can't go that far, Doug.
ReplyDelete