The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dionysian \Di`o*ny"sian\, a. Relating to Dionysius, a monk of the 6th century; as, the Dionysian, or Christian, era.
Dionysian period, a period of 532 years, depending on the cycle of the sun, or 28 years, and the cycle of the moon, or 19 years; -- sometimes called the Greek paschal cycle, or Victorian period.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
of or pertaining to Dionysos, Greek god of wine and revelry, identified with Roman Bacchus. His name is of unknown origin. Or in reference to historical men named Dionysius such as the tyrants of Syracuse and especially Dionysius Exiguus (see A.D.), such as Dionysian period of 532 Julian years, when the moon phases recur on the same days of the week.
Wiktionary
a. wild, irrational, and undisciplined
Usage examples of "dionysian".
To paraphrase Nietzsche, there are two types of Greek: the Apollonian and the Dionysian.
Within the context of the Nietzschean theme, perhaps Sabina here has regressed to or is showing the Dionysian side of her personality.
I told her how the bellied beer-god, using his Dionysian alias, had come bingeing from Naxos into Argos with his new wife Ariadne -- "He told me about her, last time I saw him," Calyxa confessed.
It's that sense of wizardry, that dionysian quality, the spontaneous way it accretes, the way it spreads on the wind all over the place, much like bread mold.
But as the blood flowed, taking with it all power to see or hear or move finally, my thoughts traveled back and back, way beyond the creation of the doomed vampire family in their paradise of wallpaper and lace curtains, to the dimly envisioned groves of mythical lands where the old Dionysian god of the wood had felt again and again his flesh torn, his blood spilled.