Euphuism

Euphuism (countable and uncountable, plural Euphuisms)

1. Alternative letter-case form of euphuism.
   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia:

     I have not the slightest faith in Carlyle. In ten years–possibly in five–he will be remembered only as a butt for sarcasm. His linguistic Euphuisms might very well have been taken as prima facie evidence of his philosophic ones; they were the froth which indicated, first, the shallowness, and secondly, the confusion of the waters.

   • 1874, J[ohn] R[ichard] Green, “The England of Elizabeth”, in A Short History of the English People. […], London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, chapter VII (The Reformation), page 393:

     Modern eyes see less of the wit than of the dregs in the works of [Robert] Greene and his compeers; but the attacks which [Thomas] Nash directed against the Puritans and his rivals were the first English works which shook utterly off the pedantry and extravagance of Euphuism.

   • 1954, Madeleine Doran, “Critical Emphasis”, in Endeavors of Art: A Study of Form in Elizabethan Drama, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, published 1963 (2nd printing), →OCLC, chapter 3 (Verisimilitude), “Art vs. Nature” section, pages 65–66:

     [I]t differs radically from [John] Lyly’s Euphuism in the employment of arguments from the “topics” as proof rather than as mere amplification, in the much less frequent use of figures of sound or of word (like alliteration, assonance, similiter cadens or similar sounding terminations), and in the relative freedom from ornamentation for its own sake, […]