Ausonian

English

Etymology

From Latin Ausonia (“Lower Italy”), extended poetically to “Italy”, from Ancient Greek Αὐσονία (Ausonía), from Αὔσων (Aúsōn), a son of Ulysses, who is said to have settled there.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔːˈsəʊni.ən/

Adjective

Ausonian (not comparable)

1. (historical) Of ancient Ausonia or the Ausonians.
   • 1834, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter IX, in The Last Days of Pompeii. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […]; successor to Henry Colburn, →OCLC:

     Sometimes they marked the form of the silk-haired and graceful capella, with its wreathing horn and bright grey eye—which, still beneath Ausonian skies, recalls the eclogues of Maro, browsing half-way up the hills; and the grapes, already purple with the smiles of the deepening summer, glowed out from the arched festoons, which hung pendent from tree to tree.

   • 1887, Theodor Mommsen, William Purdie Dickson, The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletian, page 172:

     master of the glorious art of proud Ausonian song

2. (poetic) Italian.
   • 1832–1833, Alfred Tennyson, “[Poems. (Published 1832.)] The Palace of Art”, in Poems, 8th edition, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 117:

     Or hollowing one hand against his ear, / To list a foot-fall, ere he saw / The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear / Of wisdom and of law.

3. Of or relating to the ancient poet Ausonius.

Noun

Ausonian (plural Ausonians)

1. (historical) An ancient inhabitant of middle or lower Italy.
   • 1823, “Chronology”, in Encyclopaedia Britannica:

     The Ausonians, the most ancient inhabitants of Italy, computed the day from midnight.

2. (poetic) An Italian.

Related terms

• ausonium

References

• “Ausonian”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “Ausonian”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.