Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Greek Mythology Of or relating to Dionysus.
- adj. Greek Mythology Of or devoted to the worship of Dionysus.
- adj. Of an ecstatic, orgiastic, or irrational nature; frenzied or undisciplined: "remained the nearest to the instinctual, the irrational in music, and thus to the Dionysian spirit in art” ( Musco Carner).
- adj. In the philosophy of Nietzsche, of or displaying creative-intuitive power as opposed to critical-rational power.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Same as Dionysiac.
- Pertaining to or characteristic of Dionysius the Elder or Dionysius the Younger, tyrants of Syracuse (about 405-343 B.C.), both notorious for cruelty, but especially the former.
- Pertaining to the abbot Dionysius Exiguus, who, in the sixth century, introduced the present vulgar reckoning of the years.
- n. Of or pertaining to Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in Acts xvii. 34, who is said to have been made bishop of Athens in the year 50 by the Apostle Paul; or.
- n. a pseudo-Dionysius who, about 360-450 a. d., wrote several ecclesiastical works attributed by some to the Areopagite.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to Dionysius.
- adj. Alternative form of dionysian.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Relating to Dionysius, a monk of the 6th century.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to or worshipping Dionysus
Etymologies
- From Latin Dionȳsius, from Greek Dionūsios, from Dionūsos, Dionysus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept based on parts of ancient Greek mythology.”
“The Empire never ended because the Paraclete's exile is enforced not just by the Emperor but by his subjugated people, Gnostic or Paulian, who valorise the divorce of flesh and soul, the demonisation of the former in Dionysian Satan and the idealisation of the latter in Apollonian Christ.”
“As opposed the what Nietzsche called the "Apollonian" side of culture, that which seeks balance and structure, we were now moving into the realm of the "Dionysian" - the irrational, the delusional, the fanatical side of human nature.”
“The Era of the Incarnation, often called the Dionysian Era, was soon much used in Italy and, to some extent, a little later in”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
“The lunar calendar was called Dionysian, because Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, recommended the introduction of the Alexandrian Easter cycle of 19 years and computed it for 95 years in advance.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
“The establishment of the birth of Christ as an event marking a time from which chronological data should be calculated, was first effected about 532 A.D. by Dionysius Exiguus; and as a basis for the reckoning of time this method has come to be known as the Dionysian system, and takes for its fundamental datum A.U.C. 753, that is to say”
“It was as if the idea of Dionysian release were more attractive to the band than the thing itself.”
“The author writes: "... attention enables you to have the kind of Dionysian experiences beautifully described by the old-fashioned term "rapt" — completely absorbed, engrossed, fascinated, perhaps even "carried away" — that underlies life's deepest pleasures.”
“Christianity fares very poorly according those standards; Buddhism somewhat better; and his idiosyncratic, "Dionysian" faith fares very well -- as he says, it is "the highest of all possible faiths.”
“Several ancient authors report that the king was so relieved after his march through the Gedrosian desert that he led his army along the road as in a Dionysian parade with pipes playing and soldiers bedecked with garlands.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Dionysian’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Fauvism
Words to describe art of the fauvist movement
wild, beast, color, fauve, fauvism, fauvist, avant garde, floating, violent, outrageous, radical, dynamite and 82 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 941 more...
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Master
comprehensive
picaresque, carnivalesque, -esque, grotesque, Cocteau, necropolis, hypnopædic, mojito, imprimatur, insouciance, idyll, maestro and 239 more...
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D
desultory, devitalize, diaphanous, Dionysian, disaffected, dissemble, dissimulate, dissolute, duplicitous, dysgenic, depredation, doct and 25 more...
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My Favorite Word List
remanence, resistentialism, cataclysm, paradigm, perdition, excoriate, moiety, equivogue, impuissant, irascibility, abstruse, maieutic and 37 more...
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Greek
hamartia, enchiridion, Augean, Rhadamanthine, endorphin, Dionysian
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Words from Nietzsche
Words I learned reading Nietzsche in translation in my angry youth
stoic, bellwether, wether, schadenfreude, Dionysian, Apollonian, Platonic
Tweets
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