adj of or pertaining to parnassus.
2. parnassian ·noun any one of numerous species of butterflies belonging to the genus parnassius. they inhabit the mountains, both in the old world and in america.
3. parnassian ·add. ·noun one of a school of french poets of the second empire (1852-70) who emphasized metrical form and made the little use of emotion as poetic material;
so called from the name (parnasse contemporain) of the volume in which their first poems were collected in 1866.