Definitions

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

  • adjective Of or relating to verse in which the voices of two characters alternate regularly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Describing a form of prosody featuring alternate responses.

Etymologies

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

[From Late Latin amoebaeus, from Greek amoibaios, from amoibē, change; see amoeba.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin amoebaeus, from Ancient Greek ἀμοιβαῖος (amoibaios, "reciprocal"), from ἀμοιβή (amoibē, "change; alternation").

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Examples

  • With me at our breakfasts he was gentle, tolerant, what Sydney Smith called "amoebean," talking and listening alternately.

    The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 2 Stephen Lucius Gwynn 1907

  • The third and seventh are also generally accepted as early experiments in the more realistic forms of amoebean pastoral.

    Vergil Frank, Tenney, 1876-1939 1922

  • Rumanians -- and so the amoebean word-game went on in the subcommission.

    The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Emile Joseph Dillon 1894

  • An amoebean contest ensues, in which the rivals closely imitate those of Virgil's seventh eclogue, singing against one another in stanzas of four lines.

    The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius Charles Thomas Cruttwell 1879

  • Then does Cheyne Walk hear the amoebean dialogues of strayed revellers, and knows not whether Battersea or Chelsea best deserves the pipe, the short black pipe, for which the rival swains compete in profanity and slang.

    Lost Leaders Andrew Lang 1878

  • Horace and Lydia, which he thinks as incongruous as if in an English amoebean ode Collins were to appear side by side with Phyllis.

    The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace 65 BC-8 BC Horace 1847

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