[ad. L. lēonīn-us, f. Leōn-, Leo proper name: see -INE.]
A. adj.
1. Pertaining to one of the popes named Leo. Leonine City [mod.L. Civitas Leonina], that part of Rome in which the Vatican stands, which was walled and fortified by Leo IV. (c. 850).
1870. N. & Q., Ser. IV. VI. 294/1. In describing the present course of events in Italy, constant mention is made by the papers of the ‘Leonine City.’
1892. Daily News, 16 Dec., 5/2. The Pope’s plea for jurisdiction over the Leonine City.
2. Leonine verse: a kind of Latin verse much used in the Middle Ages, consisting of hexameters or alternate hexameters and pentameters, in which the final word rhymes with that immediately preceding the cæsural pause. So leonine poet, rhyme.
[Prob. named from some mediæval poet called Leo (or Leonius) who made use of this kind of versification: for conjectures as to his identity see Du Cange.]
1658. W. Burton, Itin. Anton., 61. These rimedoggrill verses, not Leonine, as I think they are usually called.
a. 1771. Gray, Corr. (1843), 276. If the date of this poem be true, the general opinion, that the Leonine verse owes its name to Leonius, seems to be false.
1837–9. Hallam, Hist. Lit. (1847), I. i. § 87. 77. Those who attempted to write verse have lost all prosody and relapse into Leonine rhymes.
1845. Encycl. Metrop., XXI. 385/1. Sir A. Croke has given examples from more than fifty Leonine poets from the IIId to the XVth centuries.
1862. H. B. Wheatley, Anagrams, 15. Leonine verses were invented, according to Camden, in the reign of Charlemagne.
B. sb. pl. Leonine verse.
1846. Wright, Ess. Mid. Ages, I. v. 186. Its author has mixed leonines with his elegiacs.
1861. Sat. Rev., 21 Sept., 306. The Speculum is not … written either in classical metre or in leonines.
