Hudibrastic

[ hyoo-duh-bras-tik, or, often, yoo- ]

adjective
  1. of, relating to, or resembling the style of Samuel Butler's Hudibras (published 1663–78), a mock-heroic poem written in tetrameter couplets.

  2. of a playful burlesque style.

noun
  1. a Hudibrastic couplet or stanza.

Origin of Hudibrastic

1
1705–15; Hudibras + -tic

Other words from Hudibrastic

  • Hu·di·bras·ti·cal·ly, adverb

Words Nearby Hudibrastic

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use Hudibrastic in a sentence

  • Ordinary narrative poems with no satiric intent were decked in Hudibrastic couplets for the sake of a superficial cleverness.

    Aesop Dress'd | Bernard Mandeville
  • This quotation from the opening of Combe's Hudibrastic narrative will account for the originality of the hero's eccentric title.

  • It is a simple rendering in Hudibrastic verse of a familiar nursery story.

    Charles Lamb | Walter Jerrold
  • His Hudibrastic verses are poor scurrilous trash, as the reader may judge from the description of the Highlanders, already quoted.

British Dictionary definitions for hudibrastic

hudibrastic

/ (ˌhjuːdɪˈbræstɪk) /


adjective
  1. mock-heroic in style

Origin of hudibrastic

1
C18: after Hudibras, poem (1663–68) by Samuel Butler

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012