Aeolism

See also: aeolism

English

Alternative forms

• aeolism

Etymology 1

Aeolic +‎ -ism

Noun

Aeolism (countable and uncountable, plural Aeolisms)

1. (uncountable) The use of the Aeolic language or its syntactic structures.
   • 1875, William Watkiss Lloyd, The age of Pericles, a history of the politics and arts of Greece:

     This approach, however, of Aeolians to Ionians is ambiguous and accidental, and historical indications go far to show that their distinction was all but primitive; that Dorism developed independently from an Aeolism with which Ionism was already in marked contrast, at some point of earlier departure, rather than that Ionism and Dorism together were collateral shoots from an original main Aeolic stem.

   • 1876, William Walker Merry, James Riddell, Homer's Odyssey - Volume 1, page 196:

     It should be remarked that Aeolism in Homer is seen not so much in a general modification of the Ionic dialect, as in the occasional employment of the forms and flexions regarded as characteristic of the Aeolic.

2. (countable) A usage of Aeolic within a work in another language.
   • 1978, Johannes Van Eck, The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, page 23:

     Cassola regards the short form as an Aeolism (cf. Chantraine I, 161-3), which from an epic point of view would be an archaism.

   • 2012, Maren Niehoff, Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters, →ISBN, page 202:

     This ending may also be considered a mere Ionism or an Aeolism.

Etymology 2

From Aeolus, the Greek god of wind.

Noun

Aeolism (countable and uncountable, plural Aeolisms)

1. (uncountable) A fictional religion in the works of Jonathan Swift that worships the wind in general, and rhetorical form over substance in particular.
   • 1975, Derek Kenneth Collett Todd, I am not Prince Hamlet, page 52:

     Of course Aeolism is only a satirical invention, but it has a general application to all absurd philosophising (also to 'common sense' - a terrifying twist, this, uniquely Swiftian).

2. (uncountable, by extension) A tendency toward rhetorical embellishments.
   • 1965, Arnold M. Ludwig, The importance of lying, page 120:

     Aeolism, or the emphasis on the form or sound of words per se rather than on their meaning or sense, presently flourishes under many dignified guises.

   • 1992, David Durant, “Aeolism in Knickerbocker's A History of New York”, in On Humor:

     After the pipes have their final victory over the Aeolistic William, Peter Stuyvesant comes to the head of the state. His measures against Aeolism are swift: he gives his councilors "abundance of fair long pipes" (p. 248) and makes "a hideous rout among the ingenious inventions and expedients of his learned predecessor -- demolishing his flag-staffs and wind-mills" (pp. 248-249).

   • 2012 August, Tyler G Okimoto, Amy Wrzesniewski, “Effort in the face of difference: Feeling like a non-prototypical group member motivates effort”, in European Journal of Social Psychology, volume 42, number 5:

     Participant scores on one of the five personality traits, “Aeolism,” were consistently described as low compared with the other group members in all conditions.

3. (countable) A reference to or instance of wind; windiness.
   • 1996, Kevin J. H. Dettmar, The Illicit Joyce of Postmodernism: Reading Against the Grain, →ISBN:

     'Aeolisms abound in the course of the episode; 'big blow out,' 'the vent of his jacket,' 'windfall when he kicks out,' etc."

Anagrams

• Omelias, ailsome, sialome