SAPPHIC • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sapphic

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noun

Sapphic n. (Pros.) A Sapphic verse.

adjective

Sapphic adj.

Of or pertaining to Sappho, the Grecian poetess; as, Sapphic odes; Sapphic verse.

(Pros.) Belonging to, or in the manner of, Sappho; said of a certain kind of verse reputed to have been invented by Sappho, consisting of five feet, of which the first, fourth, and fifth are trochees, the second is a spondee, and the third a dactyl.

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Etymology of 'Sapphic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sapphic" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Dittochaeon, verses on themes of the Old and New Testaments, may be mentioned in order to complete the list of his works. His mastery of his very varied metres—hexameter, iambic, trochaic and sapphic—is undoubted: everywhere we note the influence of Virgil and Horace, even when these poets are not recalled by echoes of their diction which are constantly greeting ...

— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... metres formed upon Greek models were the artificial modes employed by cultivated writers. However this may be, there is no doubt that, together with the decline of antique civilisation, accent and rhythm began to displace quantity and metre in Latin versification. Quantitative measures, like the Sapphic and Hexameter, were composed accentually. The services and music of the Church introduced new systems of prosody. Rhymes, both single and double, were added to the verse; and the extraordinary flexibility ...

— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... welcome was to make crackers. Cooking is a sensual, grovelling utterance of feeling, you think? Yet, considering the drift of most women's lives, one fancies that as pure and deep love syllables itself every day in beefsteaks as once in Sapphic odes. It is a natural expression for our sex, too, somehow. Your wife may keep step with you in keen sympathy, in brain and soul; but if she does not know whether you like muffins or toast best for ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various