▪ I. genial, a.1
(ˈdʒiːnɪəl)
Also 6–7 geniall.
[ad. L. geniāl-is, f. genius: see genius. Cf. OF. genial; the mod.F. génial, pertaining to or characterized by genius, is a new formation after Ger. genial, genialisch.]
1. Of or pertaining to marriage, nuptial; also, pertaining to generation, generative. Of an angel or deity: Presiding over marriage or generation. genial bed = L. lectus genialis. Now rare.
| 1566 T. Nuce tr. Seneca's Octavia i. iii. B 2 b Neroes dreaded visage..Doth fear me that I dare not weepe..Ne suffers me this geniall face To dash with teares. 1595 Spenser Epithal. 399 And thou, glad Genius! in whose gentle hand The bridale bowre and geniall bed remaine. 1652 Gaule Magastrom. xviii. 149 So many Geniall or Genitall Gods and Goddesses. 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 712 What day the genial Angel to our Sire Brought her in naked beauty. 1703 Maundrell Journ. Jerus. (1721) 61 The virtue of them was to help Conception, being laid under the Genial Bed. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) IV. 323 The male and female [bear]..seldom are seen together but upon the accesses of genial desire. 1793 Cowper Tale iv, The spring drew near, each felt a breast With genial instinct filled. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 12 The electric impulse given in the genial act to every portion of the solids and fluids of the body. 1864 Tennyson Lucretius 97 The all-generating powers and genial heat Of Nature. |
† 2. Of or pertaining to a feast; festive. Obs.
| 1620 Venner Via Recta viii. 183 If it be a geniall meale, or much larger then ordinarie, another draught of Wine is..allowable. 1644 Milton Areop. (Arb.) 49 Buried..in the genial cups of an Academick night-sitting. 1697 Dryden Virg. Past. v. 111 In Winter shall the Genial Feast be made Before the Fire; by Summer in the Shade. 1715 Pope Iliad i. 772 Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong In feasts ambrosial. 1762 C. Johnston Reverie (1763) I. 151 No resolution is proof against the pleasures of a genial hour. |
3. Conducive to growth. Const. to. Now chiefly of air, climate, sunshine, passing into the sense: Pleasantly warm, mild.
| 1647 Cowley Mistr., Written in Juice of Lemon vi, But when a Genial heat warms thee within. 1705 Maidwell Necess. Educ. 31 The Soil was not Genial to the Seed. 1766 [Anstey] Bath Guide i. 2 Ye genial Springs! Pierian Waters, hail! 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe Myst. Udolpho vii, And gives its incense to the genial air. 1809 Med. Jrnl. XXI. 426 A recovery which..may be attributed to the regular and genial warmth of the wards. 1814 Scott Ld. of Isles iii. xiv, The wildest glen, but this, can show Some touch of Nature's genial glow. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. I. 169 In the genial month of May. 1834 L. Ritchie Wand. by Seine 119 The northern hordes..would naturally seek a more genial climate. 1858 Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872) I. 19 The soil is not genial to them. 1893 Sir R. Ball Story of Sun 319 Ice Ages and Genial Ages must have alternated in each hemisphere. |
| fig. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Relig. Wks. (Bohn) II. 98 Heats and genial periods arrive in history. a 1872 Maurice Friendship Bks. ix. (1874) 255 Those years at Horton are undoubtedly the poet's most genial time, the one in which he produced with the greatest freedom and joy. |
4. Cheering, enlivening, inspiriting.
| 1746 Collins Odes, Evening v, I hail Thy genial lov'd return. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 8 This is the genial hour. 18.. W. W. Story Giannoni 53 When the great logs blazed with a genial roar. |
5. Sympathetically cheerful, jovial, kindly.
| 1746 Smollett Reproof 173 Let ev'ry polish'd dame, and genial lord Employ the social chair and venal board. 1774 Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry (1840) I. Dissert. ii. p. cxxvi, The celebrated drinking ode of this genial archdeacon [Walter Map] has the regular returns of the monkish rhyme. 1840 Carlyle Heroes (1858) 258 Napoleon in Saint-Helena is charmed with the genial veracity of old Homer. 1847 Dickens Lett. I. 173 The most genial letter that ever was written. 1847 Tennyson Princess Concl. vi, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman. 1859 Kingsley Misc. (1860) I. 17 There is a great laugh in Raleigh's heart, a genial contempt of asses. 1882 J. H. Blunt Ref. Ch. Eng. II. 291 A pious and genial pastor. |
† 6. Pertaining to ‘genius’ or natural disposition; natural. Obs. (In the later echoes of Milton's phrase genial spirits, the adj. is prob. taken in sense 4 or 5.)
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. v. 19 Naturall incapacity, and geniall indisposition. 1671 Milton Samson 594 So much I feel my genial spirits droop. 1687 Dryden Hind & P. iii. 1147 A theologue more by need than genial bent. 1802 Coleridge Sibyl. Leaves Wks. 1877 II. 217 My genial spirits fail. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. Concl. xx, Let all my genial spirits advance. |
7. Of or pertaining to genius (see genius 5); characterized by genius. (Chiefly after Ger. genial, genialisch.)
| [1825 Carlyle Schiller ii. (1845) 116 (Translating Goethe.) Heinse's ‘Ardinghello’ and Schiller's ‘Robbers’..those performances of genial worth and wild form.] 1827–48 Hare Guesses Ser. ii. (1848) 35 But a genial age, like a genial individual, is unconscious of its own excellence. 1847 Emerson Repr. Men, Shaks. Wks. (Bohn) I. 353 Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all: in being altogether receptive. 1855 Lewes Goethe I. iv. iii. 344 note, It is difficult to find an English word to express the German genial, which means pertaining to genius. The genial period was the period when every extravagance was excused on the plea of genius. |
8. Comb., as genial-looking adj.
| 1871 M. E. Braddon Fenton's Quest I. i. 4 She was not alone; a portly genial-looking old man stood by her side. |
▪ II. genial, a.2 Anat.
(dʒɪˈnaɪəl)
[f. Gr. γένει-ον chin (f. γένυς jaw = L. gena) + -al1.]
Of or pertaining to the chin, situated on or arising from the chin; = mental a.2 genial process, genial tubercle: one of two pairs of small bony prominences behind the symphysis of the lower jaw, which give attachment to two pairs of muscles.
| 1831 R. Knox Cloquet's Anat. 283 Genio-hyoideus. This muscle..arises from a small tendon inserted into the lower genial process. 1844 Hoblyn Dict. Med., Genio-, Genial processes, the name of four eminences of the inferior maxillary bone, beneath the symphysis of the chin. 1885 Syd. Soc. Lex., Genial tubercles, the Mental spines. 1890 Huxley in 19th Cent. July 775 note, The importance attached by some to the presence or absence of the so-called ‘genial elevations’. |