Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to play or playfulness: "Fiction . . . now makes [language] the center of its reflexive concern, and explodes in ludic, parodic, ironic forms” ( Ihab Hassan).
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to play; playful.
- adj. Of or pertaining to games of chance.
Etymologies
- Latin ludo ("to play") (Wiktionary)
- French ludique, from Latin lūdus, play; see leid- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I've adopted the term ludic-contract because I think that that gets to the heart of things.”
“Even though I have pretty much jettisoned many of Black's conclusions, his call for what he refers to as the ludic lifestyle remains refreshing.”
“For example, illegal activity, even in a so-called ludic world, can be acted upon by authority, whether public or private, from system administration to ISP to an actual law enforcement division regardless of the degree of _implied anonymity_.”
“Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., in The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction (2008), argues that his idea of SF, which derives primarily from Darko Suvin (and is effectively SF as "hard SF"), is actually restrictive -- it reduces SF to the necessity of rigid scientific plausibility, when in fact SF is a much more varied genre and mode and tradition, and is just as much characterized by "ludic" elements (i.e., spontaneity, playfulness).”
“In between the excellent story elements, the "ludic" or play narrative affords the freedom to do a variety of activities.”
The Huffington Post: Bart Motes: Summer Western Blockbuster Won't Be Hitting Big Screens
“It is a kind of ludic variety of the Spanish language that we speak in Argentina.”
“By putting the exhibition in a playful context (I'm going to resist using the word "ludic"), it makes it easier to approach the works of art in the right spirit.”
“I don't disagree that *games* may have this character, but if they do, then they are no longer "ludic" in the sense intended by Huizinga.”
“Gadamer could be interesting here, as could a closer reading of Caillois or Huizinga who coins the neologism "ludic", which unfortunately isn't present in the English translation.”
“Putting it that way points to "ludic" as a (varying) characteristic of a social domain (SL, SimsOnline), rather than as something which should get us thinking first and foremost about the (heroic) experiencing individual.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ludic’.
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SCIE - Be the first...
... to use these words in spoken English and reap esteem. In the SPOKEN corpus of the COCA (full corpus: 450 million words) none of these occur.
stochastic, disputant, state-led, almshouse, exceptionality, bibliographical, t-test, z-score, personal/social, neoplastic, stroma, ludic and 288 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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phrontistery - l
from phrontistery.info
lacis, laches, labret, labile, lability, labarum, labefactation, labeorphily, lux, luff, lour, limn and 496 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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forms/acts: mind
illation, inference, spatulamancy, mantic, satori, hierophant, lexicon, hallelujah, perichoresis, ludic, stochastic, aporia and 3 more...
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Sima Yi's list
A list of words I find unusual and interesting.
dysphemism, hapax legomenon, rill, repristinate, exuviate, phillipic, fillip, cyanobacteria, prokaryotic, onomasticon, bibliotics, diplomatics and 45 more...
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Slam Fodder
Those words that will inevitable end up in a Slam Poem
feel free to challenge me!:)bumptious, gamekeeper, slamily, burbuliatorius, cryptomnesia, paradox, pulchritudinous, mimetic, anhedonia, skelf, rampike, furlough and 84 more...
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the lascivious
orgiastic, nymph, breathless, writhe, calypso, Medusa, virago, sapphic, catamite, bisou, buss, succubus and 48 more...
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delightful descriptors
petrichor, omphaloskepsis, ouroboros, oneiric, flaneur, saunter, dishabituation, fractalization, eudemony, phosphorescence, holographic, umwelt and 136 more...
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juv3nal's Words
ligature, hermeneutic, caduceus, prelapsarian, apophenia, pataphor, lipogram, epinephrine, ludic, samizdat, oulipo, oulipopo and 194 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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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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ElRojo
R. Peter Jackson's list
cantillation, jackstaff, pullulate, whoremonger, colloquy, batman, anathema, idiosyncratic, facilitation, sympathy, empathy, satrap and 134 more...
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Favorite Words of AWP13
We asked attendees who visited the Wordnik booth what their favorite words were, and these are what they told us. (AWP is an annual conference for writers and those in the writing world.)
cling, declivity, susurrus, caramel, cataract, please, fester, reverie, kerplunk!, defenestration, colonel, ocean and 174 more...
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Fun Words
Words that have funny meanings or are just fun to say.
kumquat, chimichanga, sarsparilla, rutabaga, rumpus, flummox, encrusted, prestidigitation, pomegranate, preposterous, dentiloquist, sepulchre and 323 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ludic.

taciturnyetprolix playfully aimless Jun 9, 2008
plumpesdenken "... twenteith century Irish naturalism has evolved in new, often ludic, directions." Joe Cleary Jul 18, 2007