GRECIAN

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Grecian mean? 

• GRECIAN (noun)
  The noun GRECIAN has 1 sense:

1. a native or resident of Greece

  Familiarity information: GRECIAN used as a noun is very rare.

• GRECIAN (adjective)
  The adjective GRECIAN has 1 sense:

1. of or relating to or characteristic of Greece or the Greeks or the Greek language

  Familiarity information: GRECIAN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GRECIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A native or resident of Greece

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("Grecian" is a kind of...):

European (a native or inhabitant of Europe)

Holonyms ("Grecian" is a member of...):

Ellas; Greece; Hellenic Republic (a republic in southeastern Europe on the southern part of the Balkan peninsula; known for grapes and olives and olive oil)

• GRECIAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to or characteristic of Greece or the Greeks or the Greek language

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

Grecian; Greek; Hellenic

Context example:

a Grecian robe

Pertainym:

Greece (a republic in southeastern Europe on the southern part of the Balkan peninsula; known for grapes and olives and olive oil)

Derivation:

Greek (a native or inhabitant of Greece)

 Context examples 

It might have been Grecian, it might have been Roman, only it was a shade too massive for the one, a shade too delicate for the other.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the explanation of which is still involved in some mystery.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Amy's nose still afflicted her, for it never would grow Grecian, so did her mouth, being too wide, and having a decided chin.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

There were, it is true, no finer or braver men in the room than Jackson and Jem Belcher, the one with his magnificent figure, his small waist and Herculean shoulders; the other as graceful as an old Grecian statue, with a head whose beauty many a sculptor had wished to copy, and with those long, delicate lines in shoulder and loins and limbs, which gave him the litheness and activity of a panther.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe Magna might be seen.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans—of their subsequent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,—tall, fair, blue- eyed, and with a Grecian profile.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

We were able to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy Grecian family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in England.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No one minded it but herself, and it was doing its best to grow, but Amy felt deeply the want of a Grecian nose, and drew whole sheets of handsome ones to console herself.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)