Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to poetry in which traditional material is improvised at each performance by using verbal formulas as an aid to memory.
Etymologies
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Examples
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But yes, in this case you probably mean "epithet," or "formula" if you're hitting it from the standpoint of oral-formulaic theory, which (among other things) is about plugging in units like that while your brain composes the next line of the poem. (
mrissa: Also mrissa 2010
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