The Collaborative International Dictionary
Molossus \Mo*los"sus\, n. [L., fr. Gr. ?, prop., Molossian, belonging to the Molossians, a people in the eastern part of Epirus.] (Gr. & Lat. Pros.) A foot of three long syllables. [Written also molosse.]
Wiktionary
n. (context poetry English) A metrical foot of three long syllables.
Wikipedia
Molossus may refer to:
- Molossus (bat), genus of bats
- Molossus (dog), extinct breed of dog
- Molossus (poetry), type of metrical foot
- Molossus (Μολοσσός), in Greek mythology, the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache and ancestor of the Molossians
- Molossus, Athenian commander on Euboea ~ 350 BC
- Molossus, music theme on the Batman Begins soundtrack
Molossus is a genus of bats. The genus contains ten species with a New World distribution from Mexico in the north to northern Argentina at its most southerly limit. Four of these species have distributions that include various islands in the West Indies such as Puerto Rico or Trinidad.
The genus belongs to a group commonly referred to as free-tailed bats. Its name is from the ancient Molossus breed of shepherd dog.
The Molossus is a breed of dog from ancient southern Europe.
A molossus is a metrical foot used in Greek and Latin poetry. It consists of three long syllables. Examples of Latin words constituting molossi are audiri, cantabant, virtutem.
In English poetry, syllables are usually categorized as being either stressed or unstressed, rather than long or short, and the unambiguous molossus rarely appears, as it is too easily interpreted as two feet (and thus a metrical fault) or as having at least one destressed syllable.
The title of Tennyson's poem " Break, Break, Break" is sometimes cited as a molossus, but in context it can only be three separate feet:
Break, / break, / break, At the foot / of thy crags, / O sea; But the ten- / -der grace / of the day / that is dead Will never / come back / to me. Clement Wood proposes as a more convincing instance: great white chief, of which an example occurs in "Ballads of a Cheechako" by Robert W. Service:
:For thus the / Great White Chief / hath said, / "In all / my lands / be peace".
In one literary dictionary, a dubious candidate is given from Gerard Manley Hopkins:
As a dare-gale / skylark / scanted in a / dull cage Man's mounting / spirit in his / bone-house, / mean house, dwellsIf both lines are scanned as four feet, without extra stress on "dwells", then the words in boldface become a molossus. Another example that has been given is wild-goose-chase, but this requires that there be no stress on "chase", seeing that in Thomas Clarke's "Erotophuseos" (1840), we have
And led / me im- / -percept- /-ibly, A wild- / goose chase, / far far / away,where clearly there is no molossus.
In Greek mythology, Molossus ( Greek: Μολοσσός) was the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache. He was the eponymous founder of the Molossians, an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the region of Epirus located in northwestern Greece. Molossus had two brothers, Pielus and Pergamus (the latter named after the citadel of Troy), who were also sons of Neoptolemus and Andromache.
Usage examples of "molossus".
Aunt Jane was always engaged in knitting with red wool, any fragments of attention which could be given from that task being devoted to Molossus, the toy terrier, who almost dwelt in her lap.
Aunt Jane, Aunt Ruth, Molossus, and Scipio, all were in their accustomed places.