səBased on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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rhapsodist (ˈræpsədɪst) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | a person who speaks or writes rhapsodies |
| 2. | a person who speaks with extravagant enthusiasm |
| 3. | Also: rhapsode (in ancient Greece) a professional reciter of poetry, esp of Homer |
| rhapsodistic | |
| —adj | |
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| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison. |
rhapsodist
a singer in ancient Greece. Ancient scholars suggested two etymologies. The first related the word with the staff (rhabdos) on which the singer leaned during his performance. In that view, the rhapsode is a "singer with a staff." The second connected the word with the poetic act of sewing (rhaptein) the poem (oide). Thus, the rhapsode is a "stitcher of songs." Modern scholars prefer the second etymology, which is attested in a fragment of Hesiod (7th century BC) and in Pindar's Nemean ode 2, lines 1-3. Both passages use the word rhaptein to describe the act of poetic composition. The noun rhapsoidosis is first found in 5th-century-BC inscriptions and literary sources, including Herodotus (History, Book V, part 67) and Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus, line 391).
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