lionism

1. (historical)Examples: "[page 262] The practice of "Lionism" originates in some feelings which are very good,—in veneration for intellectual superiority, and gratitude for intellectual gifts; and its form and prevalence are determined by the fact, that literature has reached a larger class, and interested a different order of people from any who formerly shared its advantages. A wise man might, at the time of the invention of printing, have foreseen the age of literary "Lionism," and would probably have smiled at it as a temporary extravagance. […] [page 280] A man so seriously devoted to an object is not likely to find himself the guest of the coarsest perpetrators of "lionism." He is not likely to accept hospitality on condition of being made a show. But if he should find himself for once placed on a footing with the asseverating gentleman—the immortal Nokes—in the print before us, he will not part with his good humour."; "To define what constitutes "a lion," would be about as easy a task as to describe the colours of a chamelion. The elements of lionism are of necessity evanescent, as they are various. Provided the thing be not common-place and familiar, there is scarcely a particular that will not constitute its owner a lion."; "An affray arose from Miss Florida getting into fits at seeing the body of a female infant dwarf, (the Palermo Fairy,) which Lady Garston had bribed the keeper of an anatomical museum to lend her for the night. Lady Merivale, disgusted by this bit of lionism, wished to be off, and looked round for Brandon to order her carriage."historical

2. (historical)Examples: "In the whirl and giddiness of his lionism, he had contracted debts with the same recklessness as he had done every thing else. But his sense of honour was now galled when these debts were to be paid, and he found himself without money to pay them."; "During the last seven or ten years of his life, [William] Wordsworth felt himself to be a recognised lion, in certain considerable London circles, […] Wordsworth took his bit of lionism very quietly, with a smile sardonic rather than triumphant, and certainly got no harm by it, if he got or expected little good."; "As a matter of fact, the exemplar of lionism belongs to a Society for the Preservation of Egotism; any attack on the lion's traits would meet with peremptory slaughter. His friends surround him and attend to it that he is duly and steadfastly extolled."historical

3. (by extension) The practice of lionizing (“treating a person as a celebrity or someone important”); also, the state of being lionized.Examples: "So sudden; all common Lionism, which ruins innumerable men, was as nothing to this. […] [T]hese Lion-hunters were the ruin and death of [Robert] Burns. […] They gathered round him in his Farm; hindered his industry; no place was remote enough from them. He could not get his Lionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do so."; "[John] Sterling […] glanced pertinently with victorious clearness, without spleen, though often enough with a dash of mockery, into its Puseyisms, Liberalisms, literary Lionisms, or what else the mad hour might be producing,—always prompt to recognise what grain of sanity might be in the same."broadly

4. (pathology) The state of a person having a leonine facies, that is, facial features which resemble those of a lion as a result of some disease, especially a form of leprosy which causes leontiasis (“a medical condition characterized by an overgrowth of the cranial and facial bones”).

5. (Rastafari) The ideals of Rastafarianism.Examples: "[page 73] Lionism transcends even Haile Selassie who merely came in the name of the Lion – as "The Conquering Lion of Judah" or as the "man-lion from Mount Zion." […] [page 75] Most Rastas attempt to become lions by attempting to syncretise and use all of these elements [Anancism, Judaic-Christianity, and African-Original Vibrations], as a means for their survival and progress. But some of these factors have ceased to be sources of strength – they have now become fetters and chains. […] Yet it is here, in this repressed sphere of African original roots vibrations, that the enduring foundations of true lionism is to be found. Ultimately, then, the return to Lionism means destroying or transcending major ingredients of our inherited selves – albeit our acquired (slave) selves."; "The remainder of [Dennis] Forsythe’s paper and the subsequent book that followed elaborated on implementing the characteristics of ‘lionism’ and achieving Rasta’s true ideal: […]"; "Ten years after, [Leonard Percival] Howell purchased ‘Pinnacle estate in Sligoville, St. Catherine[…] . . . the first free village established after “given emancipation” in 1938’[…]. It was at this site that ‘lionism’ and other fundamental RastafarI^([sic]) tenets were first developed."Rastafari