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/ˈlaɪənɪzm̩/ · noun
The 19th-century practice of bringing a lion (“an interesting person or object”) into one’s home as entertainment for visitors..
[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.
Use lionism when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Lionism means The 19th-century practice of bringing a lion (“an interesting person or object”) into one’s home as entertainment for visitors..
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
[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.
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While other contemporary cultural practices and technological developments, equally reflective of the same historical period, may have done more to shape the future condition of what we habitually describe as 'modern' celebrity, the phenomenon of lionism can be seen as uniquely representative of the heterogeneous, 'transitional' character of an earlier modernity.
His [Edward Lear's] dislike of the spectacle and practice of lionism, which were so prevalent in the social gatherings and salons of London, meant that he excluded himself from the very places where wider success, fame and fortune were arbitrated and produced.
At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, the emergent nature of literary celebrity provoked much anxious debate due to the new phenomenon of ‘lionism’. Labelled after gazing at the lions in the Tower of London, lionism was the practice of having authors at salons and evening parties to be exhibited and shown off.
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.