Definition of "Alexandrine"
Alexandrine1
adjective
comparative more Alexandrine, superlative most Alexandrine
Quotations
The division of Scholz himself, in the work last named, is into the Alexandrine and Constantinopolitan recension. […] But in amalgamating the Alexandrine and Western Mss. together, he has done not a little violence to both. Moreover, taking the fact as true, which Eusebius has related in respect to his making out fifty copies of the New Testament for the churches at Constantinople, in the time of Constantine; and the fact also that Eusebius is known, by the quotations in his works, to have given a preference to the Alexandrine copies; how can the superiority or even the discrepancy of the Constantinopolitan class of Mss. in respect to the Alexandrine, be so definitely made out?
1836, [Johann Leonhard] Hug, translated by David Fosdick Jr., edited by M[oses] Stuart, Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament, Andover: […] Gould and Newman, page 686
In Peking he teamed up with a junior partner in the wool concern, a melancholy multi-lingual Alexandrine Greek who joined him from a trip to India on other business for the firm, for a fortnight’s concentrated talks with various corporation chiefs.
1984, Roger Milliss, Serpent’s Tooth: An Autobiographical Novel, Penguin Books, page 185
noun
plural Alexandrines
A native or inhabitant of Alexandria.
Quotations
The Alexandrines considered themselves Greeks and Macedonians. And, as a matter of fact, it does not seem likely that there was any considerable infusion of native Egyptian blood in the Alexandrines.
1927, Edwyn Bevan, A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. […], page 98
The Alexandrines, proud of their sophistication, claimed that the Cairenes were provincial, the Cairo girls somewhat dowdy; their petticoats showed below their dresses, and they boasted that the really beautiful Cairo girls all married in Alexandria. To prove their point, Alexandrines invariably mentioned the celebrated Quatour Fleuri, four beautiful young brides, all Cairo born, who had all married Alexandrian men—and were supposed to have acquired that extra chic in Alexandria.
a. 1980, Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, edited by Deborah A. Starr and Sasson Somekh, Mongrels or Marvels: The Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, Stanford University Press, published 2011
Nestorius retired to his monastery; from there he was banished first to Petra in modern Jordan, and then to the deserts of Upper Egypt where he was persecuted by Egyptian monks and taken prisoner by hostile nomads. The affair was as much political as theological—the Romans and Alexandrines were jealous of his influence as patriarch of Constantinople—but it led to permanent schisms.
2002, Brian Moynahan, The Faith: A History of Christianity, Image Books, Doubleday, published 2003, page 126
Before that point perhaps only a third of the empire’s inhabitants were Roman citizens.4 The remainder were either foreigners (peregrini) or had one or other of a range of statuses that can be thought of as part citizenships, among them Latins, Junian Latins, Alexandrines and the former slaves of Roman citizens.
2021, Greg Woolf, Miguel John Versluys, “Empire as a field of religious action”, in Jörg Rüpke, Greg Woolf, editors, Religion in the Roman Empire, Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer GmbH, page 25
Alexandrine2
adjective
comparative more Alexandrine, superlative most Alexandrine
Of or relating to Alexander the Great.
Quotations
When we picture to ourselves his [Napoleon’s] dawning military genius at Toulon—his daring and decided politics in the storms of the Revolution—his Cæsarian ambition in assuming the purple—his rivalry of Hannibal in urging an army, with heavy artillery, over the frozen and apparently impassable summits of the very Alps crossed by the Carthaginian General—[…]—his Alexandrine bravery on many a bloody field, as well as his Alexandrine temerity, in warring against the elements themselves—[…]—when (we say) we picture to our imagination these, and many other scenes of Napoleon’s “strange eventful history,” we are apt to be dazzled with the splendour of his arms and the lustre of his fame!
1829 March, “Napoleon a Sainte Helene. Opinion d’un Medecin sur la Maladie de l’Empereur Napoleon, et sur la Cause de sa Mort; offerte a son Fils, au Jour de sa Majorite. Par S. Hereau, […]”, in James Johnson, editor, The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine, volume X, number XX, London: […] S. Highley, […], page 434
Have you not read somewhere of a Philip of Macedon and an Alexander of Macedonia, whom the Greeks looked down upon because he had not been born farther south, and yet who built up the best army of ancient times? Macedonia, the beginning of the great Alexandrine Empire, and birthplace of the Emperor Constantine, has stood in the midst of the Balkan countries as they have come out of the Stygian darkness of Turkish rule, as Bulgaria and Servia and Roumania and Greece became first little principalities and in our days kingdoms—as they have risen out of their dreadful servitude, Macedonia remained under the Turks.
1914, Albert Bushnell Hart, “The Balkan War”, in Addresses Delivered Before the Canadian Club of Ottawa, page 97
In a few months, he [Antigonus I Monophthalmus] had leapt from being one satrap among many to a contender for Alexandrine supremacy, and doubtless that, or something like it, was exactly what was on his mind.
2011, Robin Waterfield, Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire, Oxford University Press, pages 72–73
noun
plural Alexandrines
Short for Alexandrine parakeet.
Quotations
My own experiences of a liberty Alexandrine were of a very different nature. One Christmas Eve, above the pre-dusk cacophony which will be heard in any collection of parrots, I detected an unfamiliar voice. I soon sighted an Alexandrine flying towards the neighbouring garden.
1980, Rosemary Low, Parrots: Their Care and Breeding, Blandford Press, page 222
The nominate Alexandrine has green plumage and an immense beak. As with many of the ringnecked variety, color mutations are becoming more available, including lutino (yellow) and blue. The Alexandrine has five distinct subspecies, some slightly larger or smaller than the nominate bird.
2005, Nikki Moustaki, Parrots For Dummies®, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Alexandrine3
noun
plural Alexandrines
Alternative letter-case form of alexandrine.
Quotations
Some of these Alexandrines are well marked, in others the last word has such a strong accent on the last syllable but two that both final syllables fall on the ear rather as an addition to the last measure, a mere superfluous syllable, than a distinct measure by themselves.
1871, Alexander J[ohn] Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakspere and Chaucer, […], part III ([…]), London: […] [F]or the Philological Society by Asher & Co., London and Berlin, and for the Early English Text Society, and the Chaucer Society, by Trübner & Co., […], page 943
In all these matters each man did as he liked—some used prose, some blank, some frequent short lines, some none at all: some weak-endings, some trisyllabic feet, some female endings, some Alexandrines; but none of these things were patent to the public.
1881, C[lement] M[ansfield] Ingleby, Occasional Papers on Shakespeare: Being the Second Part of Shakespeare the Man and the Book, London: […] Josiah Allen, […] Trübner & Co., […], page 64
In some cases these are composed of trimeter couplets; that is, with the pause after the third foot; in others, they are true Alexandrines, with pauses after the second, seventh, eighth, or tenth syllable.
1891, James C[hallis] Parsons, English Versification for the Use of Students, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn, page 98
A greater challenge to the domination of the Alexandrine was by Verlaine, who wrote lines that looked like Alexandrines according to a completely different (and arbitrary) set of rules: thirteen-syllable lines, eleven-syllable lines, twelve-syllable lines without caesura.
2010, Joseph A. Dane, The Long and the Short of It: A Practical Guide to European Versification Systems, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press
Alexandrine4
proper noun
A female given name from French.
Quotations
Whoever will drink of an unadulterated stream must go to the fountain-head. This, Miss Laura Alexandrine Smith has done, and that she has drunk deeply, is easy to be seen from the spirit and enthusiasm with which she writes.
1887 June, R. M. Ballantyne, “Introductory Note”, in Laura Alexandrine Smith, The Music of the Waters. […], London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., […], published 1888, page ix