Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or containing a mixture of vernacular words with Latin words or with vernacular words given Latinate endings: macaronic verse.
- adj. Of or involving a mixture of two or more languages.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to the food macaroni.
- Pertaining to or like a macaroni or fop; hence, trifling; vain; affected.
- In lit., using, or characterized by the use of, many strange, distorted, or foreign words or forms, with little regard to syntax, yet with sufficient analogy to common words and constructions to be or seem intelligible: as, a macaronic poet; macaronic verse. Specifically, macaronic verse or poetry is a kind of burlesque verse in which words of another language are mingled with Latin words, or are made to figure with Latin terminations and in Latin constructions. The term was brought into vogue by the popular satirical works in this style of the Mantuan Teofilo Folengo (died 1544). It is probable that this use of the word has reference to the varied ingredients which enter into the preparation of a dish of macaroni.
- n. A confused heap or mixture of several things.
- n. Macaronic verse.
Wiktionary
- adj. archaic jumbled, mixed
- adj. literature Written in a hodgepodge mixture of two or more languages.
- n. literature A work of macaronic character.
- n. linguistics A word consisting of a mix of words of two or more languages, one of which is Latin, or a non-Latin stem with a Latin ending.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A heap of things confusedly mixed together; a jumble.
- n. A kind of burlesque composition, in which the vernacular words of one or more modern languages are intermixed with genuine Latin words, and with hybrid formed by adding Latin terminations to other roots.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or containing a mixture of Latin words and vernacular words jumbled together
Etymologies
- From New Latin, 1517 coinage, macaronicus, from Italian (Neapolitan dialect) maccarone ("coarse dumpling"). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin macaronicus, from Italian maccheronea, macaronic verse, after Maccharonea, title of a work containing such verse by Tifi Odasi, 15th-century Italian author, from maccherone, maccaroni, course food. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It was what is called a macaronic poempart English, part Latinand was an elegy on the death of somebody or other.”
“Vittorio Vettori (d. 1763), and Folengo, the first of the so-called macaronic writers; the jurist Piacentino (twelfth century),”
“Parceque librum non a rendu "is the kind of macaronic French and Latin which schoolboys are accustomed to write under a sketch of the borrower expiating his offences on the gallows.”
“If the macaronic inclusion of ecclesiastical Latin is too sober for your holiday, you can always set the Wayback Machine to last year's wassails.”
“The concept of a macaronic verse was new for me as well as for Matt.”
“Richard, if you wish to post my macaronic exercise, I have no objections whatsoever, with an understanding that I have no claim of its being a good poetry.”
“In the course of the conversation one of the PT crew composed a two-stanza poem in macaronic style, in which the lines of the poem are in different languages but the meter and rhyme scheme are preserved through the language shifts.”
“I cannot express in words how disspointed I was to find that “macaronic” did not refer to poetry sung to the tune of “Macarena””
“Trivia question: Which Beatles song was macaronic?”
“Trivia question: Which Beatles song was macaronic? dave mabus”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘macaronic’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
malm, marc, marl, maya, mazy, meet, mel, mew, mewling, mho, miasma, micaceous and 898 more...
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Wordplay & Pun
wordplay, pound, conceit, clinch, joke, quibble, equivoque, double-entendre, quillet, calembour, carriwitchet, paranomasia and 90 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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word list
abligurition, humectant, absterge, dactylonomy, agamous, olecranon, geosmin, sphallolalia, aquiline, obloquy, quiescent, fother and 17 more...
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Linguistic Terms
Words that (mostly) only linguists know.
arpabet, protologism, diacritic, macron, macaronic, capitonym, grapheme, boustrophedon, allograph, analphabetic, idiomatic, portmanteau and 40 more...
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addendumb's Words
fey, cockshut, redact, beatific, melange, arcanum, rarefied, dissemble, capitulation, detritus, ennui, anodyne and 381 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, M
metamerism, malady, margin, marauder, maverick, mercury, mirth, mandible, macerate, meteor, manumission, mica and 292 more...
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epeolatrist's list
epeolatry, syzygy, sphallolalia, lucubration, lugubrious, cacology, mellifluous, tmesis, synecdoche, anathema, eschatological, razbliuto and 349 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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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
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What David Foster Wallace circled in ...
ablative, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, ailanthus, aleatory, alfresco, algolagnia and 474 more...
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What David Foster Wallace Circled in ...
http://www.slate.com/id/2250784/
ablative absolute, ablaut, abulia, acephalous, ACTH, adit, adumbrate, agrapha, aleatory, ailanthus, alfresco, algolagnia and 482 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for macaronic.

jmjarmstrong JM is contemplating macaronic caseus Mar 13, 2009