euphuism

• Euphuism

From Euphues (Ancient Greek ευφυής (euphuḗs, “graceful, witty”)) +‎ -ism, after the titular character in John Lyly’s didactic romance Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578). Lyly adopted the name from Roger Ascham’s The Scholemaster (published 1570), which describes Euphues as a type of student who is “apte by goodness of witte, and appliable by readiness of will, to learning, hauving all other qualities of the mind and parts of the body, that must an other day serue learning, not troubled, mangled, and halfed, but sound, whole, full & able to do their office”.

euphuism (countable and uncountable, plural euphuisms)

1. (uncountable, historical) An ornate style of writing (in Elizabethan England) marked by the excessive use of alliteration, antithesis and mythological similes.
   • 1887, George Saintsbury, “Early Elizabethan prose”, in A History of Elizabethan Literature‎^[1]:

     The second was a fancy, which amounts to a mania, for similes, strung together in endless lists […] . It is impossible to open a page of Euphues without finding an example of this eccentric and tasteless trick, and in it, as far as in any single thing, must be found the recipe for euphuism, pure and simple.

2. (countable) An instance of euphuism.
   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia:

     I have not the slightest faith in Carlyle. In ten years–possibly in five–he will be remembered only as a butt for sarcasm. His linguistic Euphuisms might very well have been taken as prima facie evidence of his philosophic ones; they were the froth which indicated, first, the shallowness, and secondly, the confusion of the waters.

   • 1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym] (Samuel L[anghorne] Clemens), “[Appendix] E. Legend of the Castles. Called the ‘Swallows Nest’ and ‘The Brothers,’ as Condensed from the Captain’s Tale.”, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 613:

     “Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen” seems to be “Generalstatesrepresentativesmeetings,” as nearly as I can get at it,—a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for “meetings of the legislature,” I judge.

3. Misconstruction of euphemism.
   • 1857, E[lizabeth] C[leghorn] Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 89:

     Is he one who has led a wild and struggling and isolated life,—seeing few but plain and outspoken Northerns, unskilled in the euphuisms which assist the polite world to skim over the mention of vice?

   • 1927 September, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “[Twelve Stories and a Dream.] The Truth about Pyecraft.”, in The Short Stories of H. G. Wells, London: Ernest Benn Limited […], →OCLC, page 978:

     He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his lesson. “And then,” said I, “you committed the sin of euphuism. You called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You—”