anerithmon gelasma

English

Etymology

Ancient Greek ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα (anḗrithmon gélasma), from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound (90).

Noun

anerithmon gelasma (uncountable)

1. (poetic) Uncountable laughter, said of ocean waves sparkling in sunlight.
   • 1848, James Russell Lowell, Poems:

     With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow
     As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo,
     Under contract to raise anerithmon gelasma
     With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma,

   • 1855, William Makepeace Thackeray, Quarterly Review:

     ...give us the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over the rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble gayly off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst the anerithmon gelasma of the fish.

   • 1859, Richard F. Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa, →ISBN:

     On one side lies the Indian Ocean, illimitable towrds the east, dimpled with its "anerithmon gelasama," and broken westward by a thin line of foam, creaming upon the whitest and finest of sand, the detritus of coralline and madrepore.