homeric

adj

1. Resembling or relating to the epic poetry of Homer.

   “The warmeſt admirers of the great Mantuan poet [Virgil] can extol him for little more than the ſkill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyſſey in one compoſition: yet his judgment was perhaps ſometimes overborne, by his avarice of the Homeric treaſures; and, for fear of ſuffering a ſparkling ornament to be loſt, he has inſerted it where it cannot ſhine with its original ſplendor.”

   “In the beginning of the Fourth Book the poet [John Milton] introduces an Homerick cluster of similes; which seems to mark an intention of bestowing more poetical decoration on the conclusion of the Poem, than on the preceding parts of it.”

   “We, having obtained knowledge of the early derivation and distribution of mankind, and of the primitive religion, from sources other than those open to Homer, shall find in this knowledge the lost counterpart of a great portion of the Homeric myths. The theological and Messianic traditions which we find recorded in Scripture, when compared with the Homeric theogony, will be found to correspond with a large and important part of it: […]”

   “In some respects Homeric society is clearly an artificial literary creation. It is a natural tendency of all heroic epic to exaggerate the social status and behaviour of everyone involved, so that characters appear generally to belong to the highest social class and to possess great wealth and extraordinary abilities, in implicit contrast with the inequalities and squalor of the present age.”

2. Of or pertaining to Greece during the Bronze Age, as described in Homer's works.

   “Women are often carried away by force; and the whole tribe, as in Homeric times, rise to avenge the wrong.”

3. Fit to be immortalized in poetry by Homer; epic, heroic.

   “At home he [John Ruskin] looks young & rompish at the meeting, at Hunts meeting he looked old & ungainly, but his power & eloquence as a speaker were homeric.”

   “In San Francisco there was a barroom for every one hundred inhabitants. Here beer and bourbon fought a homeric battle for the hearts and throats of the thin line of patriots who balanced on the city's brass rails and voluntarily gave the national debt a lift.”

4. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Homeric.

   “At home he [John Ruskin] looks young & rompish at the meeting, at Hunts meeting he looked old & ungainly, but his power & eloquence as a speaker were homeric.”

   “In San Francisco there was a barroom for every one hundred inhabitants. Here beer and bourbon fought a homeric battle for the hearts and throats of the thin line of patriots who balanced on the city's brass rails and voluntarily gave the national debt a lift.”