Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A short poem or prose piece depicting a rural or pastoral scene, usually in idealized terms.
- n. A narrative poem treating an epic or romantic theme.
- n. A scene or event of a simple and tranquil nature.
- n. A carefree episode or experience: a summer idyll on the coast of France.
- n. A romantic interlude.
Wiktionary
- n. Any poem or short written piece composed in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the Idylls.
- n. An episode or series of events or circumstances of pastoral or rural simplicity, fit for an idyll; a carefree or lighthearted experience.
- n. music A composition, usually instrumental, of a pastoral or sentimental character, e.g. Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an episode of such pastoral or romantic charm as to qualify as the subject of a poetic idyll
- n. a musical composition that evokes rural life
- n. a short poem descriptive of rural or pastoral life
Etymologies
- From Latin īdyllium, from Ancient Greek εἰδύλλιον (eidullion), from diminutive of εἶδος (eidos, "form, shape"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin īdyllium, from Greek eidullion, diminutive of eidos, form, figure. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In so far as the idyll is a signifier to which a real world referent can be attached -- pre-industrial culture, medieval society, etc. -- we might be dubious of a restoration that is essentially an act of validation.”
“However much we can all appreciate the arguments in favour of renting, most of us still hanker after the long-term idyll of bricks, mortar and a white picket fence.”
“But the idyll is soon broken when the past rushes back to threaten the Amnipours once more, and the lives they left behind in revolution-era Iran bleed into the present.”
Pomegranate Soup: Summary and book reviews of Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran.
“However, the tourist idyll is a façade and, in fact, Jelinek depicts a camouflaged dead landscape where neither the past nor the future exists.”
“The idyll is very short lived, however, and paradise is lost when Inkle returns with Yarico to Jamaica where he attempts to sell her into slavery.”
“Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery-but their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover.”
White Oleander: Summary and book reviews of White Oleander by Janet Fitch.
“But the idyll is short lived as Hanna disappears from his life, only to resurface in a courtroom where she is being tried for iniquitous past which she had hidden from him.”
“This idyll is short-lived as the elephantine squall of S.O.S. rears its panicky, hard-riffing head.”
“I mean, you've got all the Virgilian stuff, which is totally about the idyll, and you have opening and closing sections which state pretty blatantly "This is in the Epic idiom", the spin I'm trying to put on it, I guess, being that the idyll is here and now, inside us, if we want it to be, if we recognise it.”
“Developing ideas of contemporary rural idyll, Dr Jones will explore questions of rural sustainability and how the idea of idyll should be approached through notions of performative practice.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘idyll’.
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 315 more...
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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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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 351 more...
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wile away
words for passing time
shilly-shally, procrastinate, dawdle, dilly-dally, wile, idle, loaf, loiter, idyll, putz, surf, trifle and 1 more...
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Dan: You read this already. — Your p...
Long ago, I learned a useful habit from a good friend: Every time he looked up a word in his dictionary, he’d put a mark next to it. His explanation for this was vague at best, but I understood a...
dittography, haplology, haplography, idiomology, cacoepy, orthoepist, psellism, pronunciation spe..., galbe, theropod, publican, sciolist and 111 more...
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jaradgiese's Words
paronomasia, ostensible, insouciant, sobriquet, burlesque, insalubrious, apotheosis, hyperbole, connubial, felicity, florid, conurbation and 642 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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quality words
This is a mix of new words I've read studying for the GRE verbal and words I use normally. I also check back on these words if I don't use them often enough.
ineffable, septuagenarian, sesquipedalian, argyle, coalescence, profundity, vivisepulture, defenestrate, concatenate, usurp, diatribe, veracious and 461 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Review
Words to study and become more familiar with.
phatic, tontine, backronym, polyptoton, fissiparous, deus ex machina, orrery, prolly, mad props, snog, oubliette, copyleft and 101 more...
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xyzprincess's Words
crabwise, virtu, peripatetic, idyll, trencherman, equivocate, flummery, hoi polloi, pixilated, albatross, wangle, bodacious and 170 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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Words I Don't Like
Self explanatory.
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vmarinelli's Words
canard, gumption, inexorable, insouciance, inviolable, mordant, euphonious, sawbuck, carpe diem, pay dirt, adipocere, profligate and 496 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for idyll.
milosrdenstvi If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another –
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existence would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
-- W.S. Gilbert, Ruddigore Aug 20, 2008