idyll

views updated May 18 2018

i·dyll / ˈīdl/ (also i·dyl) • n. an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque episode or scene, typically an idealized or unsustainable one: the rural idyll remains strongly evocative in most industrialized societies. ∎  a short description in verse or prose of a picturesque scene or incident, esp. in rustic life.

idyll

views updated May 29 2018

idyll. In literature a description (prose or verse) of happy rural life, and so sometimes applied to a mus. comp. of peaceful pastoral character (e.g. Wagner's Siegfried Idyll).

idyll

views updated May 29 2018

idyll short poem descriptive of a picturesque (rustic) scene or incident. XVII (earlier idyllium, -ion XVI). — L. īdyllium — Gr. eidúllion, dim. of eîdos form, picture.
Hence idyllic XIX.

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