Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A legendary Gaelic hero and bard of the third century AD.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A male given name; rather rare in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

An anglicisation, made known by James Macpherson, of Irish Oisín, diminutive form of os ("deer").

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Examples

  • OSSIAN - A group of people interested in operating golf carts on Ossian streets has been asked to meet with Police Chief Dave Rigney to give some advice to the Town Council.

    unknown title 2009

  • Another tap at the door, and enter Milutinovich, who is the best of the living poets of Servia, and has been sometimes called the Ossian of the Balkan.

    Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844. Andrew Archibald Paton 1842

  • Macpherson had recently engaged the public gaze by his 'Ossian' -- an abortion fathered upon the fourth century after

    The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • a couple of hours, popping my head out of its arches, like the fox in Ossian, and marvelling how it came to pass that the columns which from below seemed about three or four feet high, had nearly that measure in thickness when I came to stand by their side.

    Rome in the First and Nineteenth Centuries 1824

  • Fred Hoyle handles the impact of a totally new science in Ossian’s Ride.

    SF – A Humanist Perspective « Official Harry Harrison News Blog 2007

  • There is this difference, indeed, betwixt your countrymen and those of our more material world, that many of the most estimable of them, such as an old Highland gentleman called Ossian, a monk of Bristol called Rowley, and others, are inclined to pass themselves off as denizens of the land of reality, whereas most of our fellow-citizens who deny their country are such as that country would be very willing to disclaim.

    The Monastery 2008

  • Of the poets he selected the so-called Ossian, Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, Virgil, and the masterpieces of the French theatre; but he especially affected the turgid and declamatory style of Ossian.

    The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 1 of 2) John Holland Rose 1898

  • Rodriguez hired the wolf called Ossian from a Madrid wildlife park, contradicting his claim that the image was taken in the wild after months of patient tracking of the dwindling species.

    Blogposts | guardian.co.uk 2010

  • When other luminaries were persuaded by the authenticity of Macpherson's "Ossian," supposedly translated from Scotch-Gaelic, Samuel Johnson stood firm in his refusal and he did not even know the ancient language.

    Twitter and Ida 2009

  • The ancient Gaelic poems of the bard "Ossian," which helped create the modern version of olden Scotland, were the nineteenth-century invention of their "translator," James Macpherson.

    Knock It Off 2004

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