Atticism

Noun

Atticism (countable and uncountable, plural Atticisms)

1. (uncountable, ancient history) Attachment to, collaboration with, favouring of, or siding with Athens or Athenians, especially in the context of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.E.).
   • The ſame Summer, the Thebans demoliſhed the walles of the Theſpians, laying Atticiſme to their charge.1628, Thucydides, translated by Thomas Hobbes, Eight Bookes Of the Peloponnesian Warre, reprint edition, published 1634, § 4.133.1, page 286
   • 〃, § 8.38.3, page 489
2. (singular, singular-only) The enduring rhetorical movement, begun in the 1st century B.C.E., whose members strove to emulate the style of the best Attic orators of that Classical period; especially in contrast with Asianism or Hellenism. (Its leading early proponent, Dionysius of Halicarnassus [c. 60–p. 7 B.C.E.], identified Lysias [c. 445–380 B.C.E.] as “the perfect model of the Attic dialect”, whose virtues he enumerates to be “purity of language, correct dialect, the presentation of ideas by means of standard, not figurative expressions; clarity, brevity, concision, terseness, vivid representation…, the pleasing arrangement of words after the manner of ordinary speech…, charm and a sense of timing which regulates everything else”.)
3. (broadly, dated, historical, singular, singular-only) The stylistic principles of Greek Atticism in application to other languages, especially to Latin.
4. (countable, singular, singular-only) An expression or idiom characteristic of or peculiar to Attic Greek, especially an elegant and refined, if grammatically irregular, usage.
   • By the Cardinals own confeſsion, this Agapetus liued at Conſtantinople in Iuſtinians time: where it was a great matter for him, no doubt, in ſo long time, to learn to make ſuch a Greek booke as this is; which yet for the ſtile and Atticiſmes, comes a great deale ſhort of Baronius commendation.1611, Thomas James, A Treatiſe of the Corruption of Scripture, Councels, and Fathers, § II.19, page 68
   • Her mistakes, if [Catalani] makes any, are perceptible only to the musical pedant who thinks a deviation from a scientific canon ill compensated by the most fanciful beauties of execution. Such a man would accuse Thucydides of false grammar on account of his atticisms, or Homer of incorrect...1813 May 9th (Sunday), authorship uncertain, but probably Leigh Hunt or Thomas Barnes, “Theatrical Examiner, No. 137.”, in The Examiner, number 280, page 298/1
5. (broadly, countable, singular, singular-only) A refined felicity or well-turned phrase, especially one deemed ungrammatical. (In Newcome, aposiopesis, dislocation, and inverse attraction, respectively.)
   • There while they acted, and overacted, among other young ſcholars, I was a ſpectator; they thought themſelves gallant men, and I thought them fools, they made ſport, and I laught, they miſpronounc’t and I miſlik’t, and to make up the atticiſme, they were out, and I hiſt.1642 April, John Milton, An Apology Againſt a Pamphlet Call’d A Modeſt Confutation of the Animadverſions upon the Remonſtrant againſt Smectymnuus., page 14
   • There is an elegant Atticiſm which occurs Luke xiii. 9. “If it bear fruit, well.” We find this figure of ſpeech in the Chaldee, Dan. iii. 15; and, I think, in the Hebrew, Exod. xxxii. 32: “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their ſin, well.”1792, William Newcome, An Hiſtorical View of the Engliſh Biblical Tranſlations, chapter V, Rule II., page 279