rhapsody
/ˈrapsədi
/noun (plural rhapsodies)
1An effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling: rhapsodies of praise...
- A few notes from the rhapsody of praise composed in his honour in his lifetime should be enough to whet new curiosity.
- The ethos has little in common with that of science fiction; rather, it's a rhapsody on the miraculous benefits the Victorians were expecting their harnessing of electricity to bring to them.
- A rhapsody of intricate plots emerges and, with luck, hilarity ensues.
1.1 Music A free instrumental composition in one extended movement, typically one that is emotional in character: Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies...
- Wider success came with the orchestral rhapsody España, composed after a visit to Spain in 1882, which remains his best-known work.
- As in the rhapsody, Hadley's music makes its subject appear with utter clarity in the mind's eye.
- The strange songs he would sing during his morning shower were a constant source of bemusement to all who had the luxury of hearing his rhapsody.
2(In ancient Greece) an epic poem, or part of a poem, of a suitable length for recitation at one time.Write a cycle of business poems - a rhapsody to measurable results....
- There is more to be found in the rhapsody's orality, in archaisms and the atavistic language, in orality and folklore, in clerical-juggleresque rhetoric.
- I had translations of the old Mongolian rhapsodies and epodes in English, French, Italian, and German.
Derivatives
rhapsodic
/ adjective ...- Oddly for a man who pursues sensual things, Saatchi does not share Lawson's rhapsodic appreciation of food.
- Pelletier readily brings out the sensuous, rhapsodic elements of ‘L' ile joyeuse ’, and captures the jaunty, toccata-like spirit of ‘Masques’.
- Garance Franke-Ruta brought my attention to a David Brooks column in which he waxes rhapsodic about a phenomenon he calls ‘natalism,’ in which white people move to the suburbs and have babies.
rhapsodical
- The rhapsodical panegyric style is barely readable today without a faint sense of unease and suspicion as to what kind of affair it was that made Evelyn quite so determined to spiritualise it after the event.
rhapsodically
- International festivals proliferated and ancient bonds were re-established as musicians embraced folk-rock, toured widely and were rhapsodically welcomed.
- This was not a human/pet relationship, but a friendship, a partnership, perhaps even a kind of love affair: witnesses speak of Maxwell rolling about on the floor with Mij, man mewing rhapsodically to otter.
- I crawled rhapsodically back into bed and fell into some very vivid and memorable dreams.
Origin
Mid 16th century (in sense 2): via Latin from Greek rhapsōidia, from rhaptein 'to stitch' + ōidē 'song, ode'.
Rhapsody comes from Greek rhaptein ‘to stitch’, and its earliest sense carries the idea of words woven together. In the 16th century a rhapsody was a long poem, like Homer's Odyssey or Iliad, suitable for recitation. From this developed first the idea of a medley or collection, and then the sense of pleasure and approval expressed with enthusiasm rather than careful thought. The musical sense developed in the late 19th century.