[f. LYRIC + -ISM.] Lyric character or style; the pursuit or eulogy of the same; (with pl.), a lyrical expression or characteristic. Occas. (after F. lyrisme), affectation of high-flown sentiment or poetic enthusiasm.
1760. Gray, Lett. to Mason, 20 Aug. Lest people should not understand the humour of the thing (which indeed to do they must have our lyricisms at their finger ends).
1833. New Monthly Mag., XXXIX. 87. She got up a night or two of patriotic lyricism.
1834. Coleridge, Table-t., 15 March. In Beaumont and Fletcher it [blank verse] is constantly slipping into lyricisms.
1870. Daily News, 8 Sept., 4. The danger of what we may perhaps call Lyricism. We sincerely trust that the new Government will enter upon its duties in the most prosaic spirit possible.
1881. A. Austin, in Macm. Mag., XLIII. 403. Sheer lyricism just now is over much the mode.
