Word.ws English Dictionary

Poetomachia

Poetomachia proper noun: a controversy in later Elizabethan theater, involving a number of playwrights satirizing each other with their plays, in a period when verse and prose satire was banned due to the Bishops' Ban of 1599.

Proper noun

the Poetomachia

  1. (historical) A controversy in later Elizabethan theater, involving a number of playwrights satirizing each other with their plays, in a period when verse and prose satire was banned due to the Bishops' Ban of 1599.

Origin of Poetomachia

Coined by Thomas Dekker. See poet and μάχη (mákhē, “battle”).

Questions about Poetomachia

What does Poetomachia mean?
Poetomachia means a controversy in later Elizabethan theater, involving a number of playwrights satirizing each other with their plays, in a period when verse and prose satire was banned due to the Bishops' Ban of 1599.
What part of speech is Poetomachia?
Poetomachia is a proper noun.

Words near Poetomachia in the dictionary

  1. poetologically
  2. poetologies
  3. poetologist
  4. poetologists
  5. poetology
  6. Poetomachia
  7. poetress
  8. poetresses
  9. poetries
  10. poetry
  11. poetry in motion

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Poetomachia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Poetomachia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poetomachia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.