From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Leonine \Le"o*nine\ (l[=e]"[-o]*n[imac]n), adjective [L. leoninus, fr. leo, leonis, lion: cf. F. l['e]onin. See {Lion}.] Pertaining to, or characteristic of, the lion; as, a leonine look; leonine rapacity. -- {Le"o*nine*ly}, adverb
{Leonine verse}, a kind of verse, in which the end of the line rhymes with the middle; -- so named from Leo, or Leoninus, a Benedictine and canon of Paris in the twelfth century, who wrote largely in this measure, though he was not the inventor. The following line is an example:
Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: of or characteristic of or resembling a lion
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
LEONINE, adjective Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.
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