The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pierian \Pi*e"ri*an\, a. [L. Pierius, from Mount Pierus, in Thessaly, sacred to the Muses.] Of or pertaining to Pierides or Muses.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
--Pope.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
literally "of Pieria," 1590s, from Latin Pierius "Pieria," from Greek Pieria, district in northern Thessaly, reputed home of the Muses; thus "pertaining to poetry."\n\nA little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;\n
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:\n
[Pope, "Essay on Criticism," 1711]
\nThe name is ultimately from PIE *peie- "be fat, swell" (see fat (adj.)).Usage examples of "pierian".
While her body rested Derae flew across the Thermaic Gulf, high above the trident-shaped lands of the Chalcidice and on across the Pierian mountains to Thessaly, her spirit called there by the lover of her youth.
Yet near where many others sing, I have the very well-head found Whence gushes the Pierian Spring.
I quaff, as one might say, a single draught of the Pierian spring before I go on.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
Horace Eglantine deep at Pierian spring Inspiration poetic shall quaff, In numbers majestic with Shakespeare to sing, Or in Lyrics with Pindar to laugh.
Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring.
Some day, after my death, without doubt, the world will come back to my way of thinking, and purge its eyes in the Pierian spring of Mozart, cleanse its vision of all the awful sights walled by the dissonantal harmonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, and Richard Strauss.
Attalus as they journeyed high in the Pierian mountains, their cloaks drawn tightly around them against the bitterness of the north winds of autumn.