Leonine

See also: leonine and léonine

English

Adjective

Leonine (not comparable)

1. Alternative letter-case form of leonine (“of or pertaining to one of the popes named Leo; being or relating to a kind of medieval Latin verse, generally alternative hexameter and pentameter, with rhyming at the middle and end of a line (that is, internal rhyme)”)
   • c. 1760–1761 (date written; published 1814), Thomas Gray, “[Essays. Metrum.] Observations on the Pseudo-Rhythmus.”, in Edmund Gosse, editor, The Works of Thomas Gray in Prose and Verse. […], volume I (Poems, Journals, and Essays), London: Macmillan and Co., published 1884, →OCLC, pages 374–375:

     Observe, that, if the date of this poem be true, the general opinion, that the Leonine verse owes its name to Leonius, seems to be false; […] It is not therefore very likely, as Leonius flourished in 1154, that he should give name to such Latin verses upwards of thirty years before. Indeed some people have thought that it was called after Leo, probably the Second, who lived in 684, a pope who is said to have reformed the hymns and the music of the church.

   • 1837, Henry Hallam, “On the General State of Literature in the Middle Ages to the End of the Fourteenth Century”, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, volume I, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, paragraph 84, page 100:

     [T]he Latin poetry, instead of Leonine rhymes, or attempts at regular hexameters almost equally bad, becomes, in the hands of Gunther, Gualterus de Insulis, Gulielmus Brito, and Joseph Iscanus, to whom a considerable number of names might be added, always tolerable, sometimes truly spirited; […]

Derived terms

• Leonine verse

Noun

Leonine (plural Leonines)

1. Alternative letter-case form of leonine (“a 13th-century coin minted in Europe and used in England as a debased form of the sterling silver penny”)
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “Edward the Fyrste”, in The Laste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume II, London: […] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, page 835, column 2:

     In the eyghte and twentye yere of his raign in the Chriſtmaſſe ſeaſon Kyng Edwarde ſet foorth a proclamation, forbidding and prohibiting all foraine coine to bee receyued and payde as ſterling mony wythin his dominion, commaunding by the ſame proclamation, that two peeces of them ſhould go for one ſterlying, vntill the feaſt of Eaſtre. There were diuers moneyes in thoſe dayes currant wythin this realme, as Pollardes, Crocards, Staldinges, Egles, Leonines, Steepinges, and all theſe were white monyes, artificially made of ſiluer, copper, and ſulphur, ſo that it was an yll tyme for baſe moneyes, and muche choppyng and chaunging was vſed in buying and ſelling of thynges.

   • 1642, Edw[ard] Coke, “Stat. de Tallagio non Concedendo, Edit. Anno 34 Edw. I.”, in The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England. […], London: […] M[iles] Flesher, and R[obert] Young, for E[phraim] D[awson], R[ichard] M[eighen], W[illiam] L[ee] and D[aniel] P[akeman], →OCLC, chapter XX, page 577:

     [I]n the raign of E[dward] I. there were divers white monies called Pollards, Crocards, Staldings, Eagles, Leonines, and Steepings artificially made of ſilver, copper, and ſulphur, and yet currant within the Realme; and for that two pieces of theſe monies were but of the value of one ſterling. King E. I. by his Proclamation utterly forbad the ſame.