gymnasticadj.n.

1574 T. Newton tr. G. Gratarolo Direct. Health Magistrates & Studentes Pref. 2 Gymnasticke Arte which is the trade of exercising men in feates of Activitie.

1705 F. Fuller Medicina Gymnastica 111 A most easie Natural Gymnastick course.

1781 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall II. xviii. 87 He excelled in the gymnastic arts of leaping and running.

1839 C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece (new ed.) II. 50 The state seems to have interfered, to compel his attendance at the gymnastic schools.

1870 H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (ed. 2) I. ii. iii. 204 The gymnastic feat of raising the body up a ladder hand over hand.

1850 J. Leitch tr. K. O. Müller Ancient Art (new ed.) §120. 91 The art of modelling brazen statues of athletes..was raised..to the most perfect representation of beautiful gymnastic figures.

1785 W. Cowper Task ii. 591 A form not now gymnastic as of yore.

1945 F. Wormald in Archaeologia 91 127 These initials are composed of animals, monsters, and human figures, who clamber all over the framework of the letter as if using it as a kind of gymnastic appliance... In the Canterbury MSS. this gymnastic method is carried to extreme lengths.

1945 F. Wormald in Archaeologia 91 130 The Durham artists had some knowledge of the continental ‘gymnastic’ initial so popular at Canterbury.

1946 F. Wormald Survival Anglo-Saxon Illumin. 9 Another new type of English initial..is the so-called ‘gymnastic’ style, where animals and creatures clamber all over the frame of the initial rather in the manner of acrobats. This type was rare in England before the Conquest, but is found in the Durham MSS. and is an outstanding characteristic of Canterbury illumination of about the year 1100.

1952 D. T. Rice Eng. Art 871–1100 vii. 216 The B of the Beatus page is in keeping with late Saxon developments, for in addition to the usual scroll-work, a number of little figures appear clambering amongst the stems; Wormald has aptly termed this the ‘gymnastic’ style.

1954 M. Rickert Painting in Brit.: Middle Ages iii. 66 The wholesale introduction of such human figures into the initial..decorative, ‘gymnastic’ figures.

1970 Anglo-Saxon Illumination in Oxf. Libr. 7 Initial ‘Þ’. Two dragons and a gymnastic figure make up the initial.

1581 R. Mulcaster Positions xxxv. 128 This terme Gymnastice, which emplyeth in name, and professeth in deede, the arte of exercise.]

1598 I. D. tr. L. Le Roy Aristotles Politiques 204 They haue..more esteemed gymnasticke, which is the vse of bodily exercises, then musick.

1739 tr. C. Rollin Anc. Hist. (ed. 2) V. 38 The art by which they formed themselves for these encounters, was called Gymnastic.

1871 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues II. 34 Good gymnastic..will..give health to the body.

1881 J. P. Mahaffy Old Greek Educ. iv. 38 The master of gymnastic.

1797 T. Holcroft tr. F. L. Stolberg Trav. (ed. 2) III. lxxvii. 173 This music included both poetry and dancing. It was the gymnastic of the soul.

1838 Sir W. Hamilton in Reid's Wks. (1842) II. 701/2 (note) Mathematical study is the very worst gymnastic of the intellect.

1882 J. C. Morison Macaulay i. 9 A course of what at Oxford is technically called ‘science’, would have been an invaluable gymnastic for Macaulay.

1652 J. Evelyn State of France 88 Academies dedicated chiefly to this Discipline, & other martiall Gymnastiques.

1825 W. Hone Every-day Bk. (1826) I. 1316 Gymnastics..have not until lately been practised.

1865 E. W. Jackson (title) Gymnastics for the Fingers and Wrist.

1867 J. Howard (title) Gymnasts and Gymnastics.

1876 J. Grant Hist. Burgh Schools Scotl. ii. v. 180 Gymnastics have become one of the institutions of the country.

a1832 J. Bentham Deontology (1834) II. 266 Efficient benevolence in action may be considered the gymnastics of the mind, or the field in which it is displayed, the mental gymnasium.

1841 R. W. Emerson Art in Ess. 1st Ser. (London ed.) 359 Painting and sculpture are gymnastics of the eye.

1854 R. W. Emerson Poetry & Imag. in Lett. & Social Aims in Wks. (Bohn) III. 144 I think Hindoo books the best gymnastics for the mind.

1883 Knowledge July 59/2 All who prefer singing to musical gymnastics.

1905 R. Broughton Waif's Progress xxviii. 308 It seemed an impossible feat in mental gymnastics to..wrench his thoughts away.

1957 C. L. Wrenn Word & Symbol (1967) 193 Will the deliberate ordinariness of dramatic language of The Confidential Clerk come any nearer to bringing poetry to the people than the stirring mental and metrical gymnastics of Mr. Christopher Fry?

1966 P. Moloney Plea for Mersey 25 These verbal gymnastics are heard in England elsewhere than in Liverpool.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica iii. i. 105 Mercurialis in his Gymnasticks justly makes standing one kinde of exercise. View more context for this quotation