homeric

Adjective capitalized: Homeric

Homeric (comparative more Homeric, superlative most Homeric)

1. Resembling or relating to the epic poetry of Homer.
   • The warmeſt admirers of the great Mantuan poet [Virgil] can extol him for little more than the ſkill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyſſey in one compoſition: yet his judgment was perhaps ſometimes overborne, by his...1751 May 14, [Samuel Johnson], “[Echoes and Imitators]”, in The Rambler, volume V, number 121, Edinburgh: Printed by Sands, Murray, and Cochran; sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright, J. Yair, and other...
   • In the beginning of the Fourth Book the poet [John Milton] introduces an Homerick cluster of similes; which seems to mark an intention of bestowing more poetical decoration on the conclusion of the Poem, than on the preceding parts of it.1852, Henry John Todd, “Preliminary Observations on Paradise Regained”, in The Poetical Works of John Milton. With Notes of Various Authors; and with some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton...

   Synonyms:

   Homerical, Homerican

2. Of or pertaining to Greece during the Bronze Age, as described in Homer's works.
   • Women are often carried away by force; and the whole tribe, as in Homeric times, rise to avenge the wrong.1860, Hugh Blair, “A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal”, in Ossian, translated by James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian; Translated by James Macpherson, Esq. to which...
3. Fit to be immortalized in poetry by Homer; epic, heroic.
   • At home he [John Ruskin] looks young & rompish at the meeting, at Hunts meeting he looked old & ungainly, but his power & eloquence as a speaker were homeric.1857 March 16, Ford Madox Brown, “1857 [chapter title]”, in Virginia Surtees, editor, The Diary of Ford Madox Brown (Studies in British Art), New Haven, Conn.; London: Published for the Paul Mellon...
   • In San Francisco there was a barroom for every one hundred inhabitants. Here beer and bourbon fought a homeric battle for the hearts and throats of the thin line of patriots who balanced on the city's brass rails and voluntarily gave the national debt a lift.1963 winter, Gerald Carson, “The Dark Age of American Drinking”, in The Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 39, number 1, Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia, →OCLC, page 99