rhapsodicadj.

1751 ‘F. Fizz-Puff’ Let. 11 June in Student 2 No. 9. 352 It is a topsy-turvy, rhapsodic, miscellaneous method of writing.

1813 J. Forsyth Remarks Excurs. Italy 338 The cathedral, which is a pile so antique and so modern, so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is of no style itself.

1898 I. M. Anderton tr. D. Comparetti Trad. Poetry of Finns 341 The rhapsodic work of the laulajat does not contain, as we have seen, any germ of the epic composition.

1957 Chicago Tribune 8 Sept. iv. 7/3 This gives an accurate yet somewhat rhapsodic account of the 1956 anti-soviet Hungarian revolution... The story is not narrated, but pieced together of fragments from documents, dispatches, radio broadcasts, [etc.].

1999 D. Large in P. Deutscher & K. Oliver Enigmas 79 The ‘rhapsodic’, fragmentary organization of Hoffmann's text is such that Murr's self-narrative is continually breaking off to give way to the interleaved autobiography of his master.

1753 Ess. Celibacy 15 Intellectual delights..will bear with more truth and justice, copious and rhapsodic elogiums.

1779 V. Knox Ess. II. xxvi. 256 The meditations of Harvey..are written in that rhapsodic style, which wearies by its constant efforts to elevate the mind to extacy.

1787 F. Burney Diary 16 Feb. (1842) III. 328 I begged him to rise, and be a little less rhapsodic.

1831 J. Bouchette Brit. Dominions N. Amer. I. 98 This spot [sc. Cootes' Paradise] owes its name to the rhapsodic expression of an enthusiastic sportsman, who being here stationed..found the sport so excellent.

1879 ‘G. Eliot’ Theophrastus Such viii. 146 There is a fable that when the badger had been stung all over by bees, a bear consoled him by a rhapsodic account of how he himself had just breakfasted on their honey.

1927 S. Lewis Elmer Gantry xvi. 230 He enjoyed the buoyancy of power as he bespelled his classes with long, involved, fruity sentences rhapsodic as perfume advertisements.

1958 Times 3 Oct. 13/1 In emotional, even rhapsodic, language far removed from the scientific precision in which she had been trained, she preached the gospel of marriage as a partnership of equals.

2000 A. Mason in Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 628/2 In France Lamennais mixed medieval papalism with a Romantic love of the people, writing rhapsodic visionary prose.

1829 Edinb. Rev. Oct. 211 Kant, who..proceeds on this false hypothesis to blame the execution as rhapsodic, as incomplete, as confounding derivative with simple notions.

1865 J. H. Stirling Secret of Hegel II. 22 That rhapsodic appearance of undeducedness and incompleteness which he [sc. Kant] himself abhors.

1986 J. B. Soloveitchik Halakhic Mind 105 Before Aristotle, Greek scientific thought was essentially rhapsodic. It lacked the aspect of totality.

2004 T. S. Quinn in M. Gorman & J. J. Sanford Categories vi. 83 Unlike Aristotle, who, ‘having no principle, snatched them up as he came upon them’, Kant's table of categories is (in his view) not ‘rhapsodic’.

1844 Amer. Biblical Repository Apr. 435 The public taste in this country is much in favor of that music which is of a high rhapsodic character, because it is tasteful, lively, energetic, [etc.].

1906 Official Programme 17th May Music Festival at Cincinnati 82 It must not be supposed..that the symphony is rhapsodic, or disjointed and at variance with the laws of organic unity.

1940 Manch. Guardian 17 Jan. 8/4 In their performance of John Ireland's Fantasy-Trio in A minor more exuberance at times would have suited the rhapsodic nature of the music.

2007 P. Dirksen H. Scheidemann's Keyboard Music 149 The new-style (harpsichord) forms such as the canzona and the rhapsodic toccata..play an important role in Weckmann's oeuvre.

1846 G. Grote Hist. Greece II. i. xxi. 188 (note) It appears that there had once been rhapsodic exhibitions at the festivals of Dionysus.

1907 J. Tunison Dramatic Trad. Dark Ages 331 The meager dramatic tradition of England before Shakespeare's time—including the religious and artisan plays of the Middle Ages, the rhapsodic recitation of poetic tales..and of certain tragedies.

1969 Classical Rev. 19 144 The Iliad..has features that betray its subdivision for rhapsodic recitation.

1991 Greece & Rome 38 1 A festival, the obvious occasion in archaic Greece both for rhapsodic contests and for recitation of independent narrative hymns.