Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Strictly and uncompromisingly just.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or resembling Rhadamanthus, in Greek mythology one of the three judges of the lower world, son of Zeus and Europa, and brother of Minos: applied to a solemn and final judgment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to Rhadamanthus; rigorously just.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Rhadamanthus.]

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Examples

  • And he gave a kind of Rhadamanthine nod of approval of his own stern justice.

    London: Saturday, August 26, 1865 1865

  • Not so long ago, he was one of Bay Street's best-known investment strategists, famous for his strong convictions, his right-of-Reagan political leanings and his Conrad-Black-esque vocabulary (how many financial pros can use "Rhadamanthine" in a sentence?).

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed 2009

  • Not so long ago, he was one of Bay Street's best-known investment strategists, famous for his strong convictions, his right-of-Reagan political leanings and his Conrad-Black-esque vocabulary (how many financial pros can use "Rhadamanthine" in a sentence?).

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Derek DeCloet 2009

  • Life holds no inscrutable dark places for those who have passed through this ordeal; their judgments are Rhadamanthine.

    A Woman of Thirty 2007

  • Because a romantic Substitut du Procureur de Roi chooses to compose and recite a little drama, and draw tears from juries, let us hope that severe Rhadamanthine judges are not to be melted by such trumpery.

    The Paris Sketch Book 2006

  • But in spite of these joyful tidings it must, alas! be remembered that Poena, that just but Rhadamanthine goddess, whom moderns ordinarily call Punishment, or Nemesis when we wish to speak of her goddess-ship, very seldom fails to catch a wicked man though she have sometimes a lame foot of her own, and though the wicked man may possibly get a start of her.

    Framley Parsonage 2004

  • As for that Rhadamanthine criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it to the immaculate.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 Various

  • Rhadamanthine summons came, and the Bubble-Blower went to bed.

    The Substance of a Dream F. W. Bain

  • But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, having more than the usual share of boy’s justice in him, —the justice that desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts.

    VI. The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming. Book I—Boy and Girl 1917

  • This is partly due to the creation and enforcement of wise game laws—although here also it must be admitted that in some of the Provinces, as in some of the States, the alien sportsman is judged with Rhadamanthine severity, while the home offenders, and even the home Indians, are but little interfered with.

    XI. A Curious Experience 1916

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