marmoreal

English

WOTD – 8 September 2023

Etymology

From Latin marmoreus (“of, pertaining to, consisting of or made of marble; resembling marble; adorned with statues”) + English -al (suffix forming adjectives).^[1] Marmoreus is derived from marmor (“block or piece of marble; marble building or statue”) (from Ancient Greek μάρμᾰρος (mármăros, “marble”)) + -eus (suffix forming adjectives from nouns).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɑːˈmɔː.ɹɪ.əl/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /mɑɹˈmo.ɹi.əl/
Rhymes: -ɔːɹiəl
Hyphenation: mar‧mor‧e‧al

Adjective

marmoreal (comparative more marmoreal, superlative most marmoreal) (literary)

Resembling marble or a marble statue; cold, smooth, white, etc.; marblelike.
Synonyms: (obsolete) marmoraceous, (obsolete) marmorean, (obsolete) marmoreous
- 1798 July, Walter Savage Landor, “Book IV”, in Gebir; a Poem, […], London: […] Rivingtons, […], →OCLC, page 35, lines 29–32:
  How many a night serene, shall I behold / Those vvarm attractive orbits, close inshrined / In ether, over vvhich Love's column rose / Marmoreal, trophied round vvith golden hair.
- 1817 December (indicated as 1818), Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, “Canto First”, in Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century. […], London: […] [F]or Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, […]; and C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […]; by B[uchanan] M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, stanza XX, page 11:
  [T]he green / And glancing shadows of the sea did play / O'er its marmoreal depth: […]
- 1869, Robert Browning, “IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius.”, in The Ring and the Book. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder and Co., →OCLC, pages 177–178, lines 51–53:
  Each feminine delight of florid lip, / Eyes brimming o'er and brow bowed down with love, / Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous,— […]
- 1901 December, Edward S[ims] Van Zile, “The Chopin Society”, in Perkins, the Fakeer: A Travesty on Reincarnation […], New York, N.Y., London: The Smart Set Publishing Co., published April 1903, →OCLC, page 246:
  The marmoreal whiteness of her perfect neck and firm, well-rounded arms was emphasized by a sharp contrast. Of color there was none, save for the slight flush of health in her cheeks and the rich, red line of her strong, sensitive mouth.
- 1932 July, John Buchan, “Mr Reginald Daker”, in The Gap in the Curtain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, section VI, page 217:
  Youth's infinite choice of roads had given place to a rigid groove, presided over by a relentless marmoreal blonde.
- 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 6, in Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy; II), revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published October 1968, →OCLC, section 6, page 34:
  Irma had collapsed into a chair, and her long marmoreal face was buried in her hands.
- 1984, Italo Calvino, “[Stories of Love and Loneliness] The Adventure of a Soldier”, in William Weaver, transl., Difficult Loves (A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book), San Diego, Calif., New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, page 188:
  [I]f now the soldier's fingertips, the pads, seemingly endowed with a sudden clairvoyance, could sense through those different stuffs the hems of subterranean garments and even the very minute roughness of skin, pores and moles—if, as I said, his fingertips arrived at this, perhaps her flesh, marmoreal and lazy, was hardly aware that these were, in fact, fingertips, and not for example, nails or knuckles.
- 1985 September 1, Anthony Burgess, chapter 1, in The Kingdom of the Wicked, London: Allison & Busby, published 2009, →ISBN, page 98:
  The gods, of course, were a quite farcical invention, though necessary for the as it were marmoreal exaltation of the civic virtues.
(obsolete) Made out of marble.
Synonym: marble
- c. 1926 – 1927 (date written), H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath”, in August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, compilers, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House, published 1943, →OCLC; republished in August Derleth, editor, The Arkham Sampler, volume 1, number 1, Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House, winter 1948, →OCLC, part I, page 50:
  But each night as he stood on that high marble terrace with the curious urns and carven rail and looked off over that hushed sunset of beauty and unearthly immanance he felt the bondage of dream's tyrannous gods; for in no wise could he leave that lofty spot, or descend the wide marmoreal flights flung endlessly down to where those streets of elder witchery lay outspread and beckoning.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

resembling marble or a marble statue — see also marblelike

Bulgarian: мраморен (mramoren)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 大理石的 (dàlǐshíde)
Finnish: marmorinen
French: marmoréen (fr)
Georgian: მარმარილოსებრი (marmarilosebri)
German: marmorn (de)
Irish: marmarach
Italian: marmoreo (it)
Macedonian: ме́рмерен (mérmeren), мра́морен (mrámoren)
Maltese: mraħħam, rħami
Romanian: marmoreean
Spanish: marmóreo (es) m, marmoroso (es) m, marmoleado (es) m
Welsh: marmoraidd, mynoraidd

References

^ “marmoreal, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “marmoreal, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.