[f. EPICUREAN + -ISM.]
1. The philosophical system of Epicurus.
a. 1751. Bolingbroke, Ess. Hum. Reason, Wks. (1754), II. 87 (R.). He that should take all his notions of … epicureanism from Balbus.
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., iv. (1867), 78. The modern Stoic (or Antinomian) … borrows the practical part of Epicureanism.
2. Adherence to the principles of Epicurus, or to what are commonly understood as such; hence, devotion to a life of ease, pleasure and luxury. Also transf.
1847. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (1867), I. 376. That pensive epicureanism which gives so peculiar a character to his poems.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 250. His dislike of the Puritans … sprang, not from bigotry, but from Epicureanism.
1872. Minto, Eng. Lit., II. x. 611. This literary epicureanism (or rather gluttony).
