*Pronunciation:*  ˈætɪsɪz(ə)m

*Etymology:*  < Greek Ἀττικισμός.

 *1.* Siding with, or attachment to, Athens.

1628   T. Hobbes tr. Thucydides Peloponnesian War viii. xxxviii,   Tydeus and his accomplices were put to death for atticism.

1837   C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece IV. xxxi. 188   The charge of Atticism.

 *2.* The peculiar style and idiom of the Greek language as used by the Athenians; hence, refined, elegant Greek, and gen. a refined amenity of speech, a well-turned phrase.

1612   T. James Treat. Corruption Script. ii. 68   Which yet for the stile and Atticismes comes a great deale short of Baronius commendation.

1642   Milton Apol. Smectymnuus in Wks. (1851) III. 268   They made sport, and I laught, they mispronounc’t and I mislik’t, and to make up the atticisme, they were out, and I hist.

1792   W. Newcome Eng. Biblical Transl. 279   There is an elegant Atticism which occurs [in] Luke xiii. 9.

1813   Examiner 10 May 298/1   Such a man would accuse Thucydides of false grammar on account of his atticisms.