caustic-epithet

Updated: August 19, 2026

There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy," one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language, for the purpose of ridiculing him into silence.

Oliver Wendell Holmes - The Poet at the Breakfast-Table

There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy," one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language, for the purpose of ridiculing him into silence.

Oliver Wendell Holmes - Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works