Meaning of winged word | Babel Free

Definitions

A word or statement which is very apt for an occasion, or memorable.

idiomatic, in-plural, literary

Equivalents

Examples

“[Polyhymnia] For the ſweet numbers and melodious meaſures, / With which I wont the winged words to tie, / And make a tunefull Diapaſe of pleaſures, / Now being let to runne at libertie / By thoſe which haue no skill to rule them right, / Haue now quite loſt their naturall delight.”

“The ſubtle Tyrians, who did firſt invent, / Our winged words, in Barks of Trees to print: […]”

“There is the gay Mr. Trimeter who never opens his Mouth without a Flight of Winged Words, as the Poets call them, which are gone paſt the Recovery of himſelf, or his Hearers, and ſtill followed by a Second and a Third Flight, and you are obliged to him for holding his Tongue, meerly becauſe he is out of Breath.”

“His ſupplicating voice he raiſed: And poured theſe winged words, in his ruthleſs ears: […]”

“Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is, of a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split asunder, and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable [Doctor; i.e., Alexander of Hales], with all his logical roots, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on all hands too hard for him.”

“The tone of France after the declaration of war was the white glow of dedication: a great nation's collective impulse (since there is no English equivalent for that winged word, élan) to resist destruction.”

“Homer, the master-builder and rebel against time, in whom the conviction that the ‘winged word’ shall outlast death speaks out in constant jubilation, goes blind. Orpheus is torn to bleeding shreds. Yet the word will not be quenched; […]”

“[A] proverb is a winged word, outliving the fleeting moment.”

“Homer often speaks of epea pteroenta, "winged words": in traditional interpretations, this metaphor stood for the swift and lofty birdlike flight of language, particularly poetic language.”

CEFR level