Lyric
adj.joyful, thoughtfulliterary
What it means
Expressive, melodious, and shaped by personal feeling.
Reach for it when describing music, writing, or art whose emotional flow is songlike rather than argumentative
The film pauses for a lyric passage of wind, water, and unhurried movement.
Choose between these
7- everyday
smooth continuity creates graceful movement
not when Flowing concerns motion and does not guarantee emotional expression.
- everyday
songlike
plain comparison to song captures the quality
not when Songlike describes form or sound and may lack personal feeling.
- warm
flowing emotional beauty is the straightforward description
not when Lyrical is the more common adjective and may make the shorter lyric sound affected.
- warm
imaginative language or beauty deserves broad praise
not when Poetic can be dense or austere and is not necessarily melodious.
- professional
emotion or meaning is communicated vividly
not when Expressive can be forceful, angular, or spoken without musical flow.
- formal
rhapsodic
ecstatic enthusiasm gives the work a free musical quality
not when Rhapsodic is more exuberant and can overstate a quiet lyric passage.
- literary
pleasing succession of musical sound is foremost
not when Melodious fits sound and cannot fully describe visual or written feeling.
Said against
4- prosaic
- discordant
- impersonal
- stilted
It naturally appears in
3- lyric beauty
The small film finds lyric beauty in ordinary repair work.
- lyric passage
A lyric passage for solo violin opens the final movement.
- lyric quality
Careful repetition gives the essay a lyric quality without obscuring its argument.
Where this comes from
- wiktionary, English adjective, expressing emotion in an imaginative and musical way sense opens in a new tab · retrieved 2026-07-26
The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.