batrachomyomachian
English edit
Etymology edit
From Batrachomyomachia (Ancient Greek βάτραχος, frog, μῦς, mouse, and μάχη, battle), a comic epic parodying the Iliad in which a diving frog accidentally drowns a mouse riding on his back, prompting a war between the species.
Adjective edit
batrachomyomachian (comparative more batrachomyomachian, superlative most batrachomyomachian)
- (rare) Petty (chiefly of a quarrel).
- 1933, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Earl Leslie Griggs, Philip Hamilton McMillan, Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
- ...sounded throughout to my own ears as a Batrachomyomachian battle between the croaks and the squeaks...
- 1971, Edwin Harrison Cady, The Light of Common Day: Realism in American Fiction:
- The batrachomyomachian cure for the superhuman ego is to chop it off at the knees and cut it down to a human, preferably humane, level.