a. and sb. [ad. L. anacreontic-us, f. Gr. Ἀνακρέων prop. name; cf. mod.Fr. anacreontique.]
A. adj. Of, or after the manner of, the Greek poet Anacreon. a. Having the structure or metre of Anacreon’s lyrics.
1706. Phillips, Anacreontick Verse, consists of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain Law of Quantity.
1749. [J. Mason], Numbers in Poet. Comp., 65. Anacreontic Verse … is usually divided into Stanzas, each Stanza containing four Lines which Rime alternately to each other; and every Line consists of three Troches and a long syllable, e.g., Cease, Trelawney, cease to teize me, Mirth and Music are but vain; Wine and Laughter now displease me, And thy Rules increase my Pain.
b. Convivial and amatory.
1801. Miss Edgeworth, Belinda (1832), I. vii. 121. He laughed and sang with Anacreontic spirit.
1839. Hallam, Hist. Lit., III. II. v. § 29. 250. His amatory and anacreontic lines.
B. sb. A poem in imitation of, or after the manner of Anacreon’s; an erotic poem.
a. 1656. Cowley (title), Anacreontiques; or some copies of verses translated paraphrastically out of Anacreon.
1878. T. Sinclair, Mount, 74. Moore and Burns’s anacreontics are the first true step in the lyrical.
