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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Orphic

Orphic \Or"phic\, prop. a. [L. Orphicus, Gr. ?.] Pertaining to Orpheus; Orphean; as, Orphic hymns.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Orphic

1670s, from Greek orphikos "pertaining to Orpheus," master musician of Thrace, son of Eagrus and Calliope, husband of Eurydice, whose name (of unknown origin) was associated with mystic doctrines. Related: Orphism.

Usage examples of "orphic".

Gate were little enclaves of Druses, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Confucianists, Taoists, Shintoists, Hindus, Pantheists, Gnostics, Orphics, Metempsychosans, Dualists, Unitarians.

Dionysus and that the Eleusinian, Orphic and other mysteries associated with Dionysus were all based on eating this early hallucinogen.

Their separation was one of form rather than of substance: and from the time when Hercules obtained initiation from Triptolemus, or Pythagoras received Orphic tenets, the two conceptions were tending to re-combine.

Indeed, some scholars, such as the early Englishman Robert Graves, explored the idea that the raw mushroom amanita muscaria was the so-called ambrosia of the worshipers of Dionysus and that the Eleusinian, Orphic and other mysteries associated with Dionysus were all based on eating this early hallucinogen.

In the crowded, twisting streets behind the Thieves' Gate were little enclaves of Druses, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Confucianists, Taoists, Shintoists, Hindus, Pantheists, Gnostics, Orphics, Metempsychosans, Dualists, Unitarians.

The bond between the story of Alcestis, who goes down to death to save the life of Admetus, and that of Leonore, who ventures her life to save Florestan, is closer than that of the Orphic myth, for though the alloy only serves to heighten the sheen of Eurydice's virtue, there is yet a grossness in the story of Aristaeus's unlicensed passion which led to her death, that strongly differentiates it from the modern tale of wifely love and devotion.