Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to Charles Dickens, the novelist (1812–70), or to his writings or style: as, Dickensian characters.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to Charles Dickens or, especially, his writings.
- adj. Reminiscent of the environments and situations most commonly portrayed in Dickens' writings, such as poverty and social injustice and other aspects of Victorian England.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or like the novels of Charles Dickens (especially with regard to poor social and economic conditions)
Examples
“The word Dickensian instantly conjures up a vivid picture of Victorian life with all its contrasts and intrigue, and his characterisation is as fresh today as it was on the day it was written.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph
“On Orwell, Burke and Dickens, including the term "Dickensian" and how it does-and does not-apply to Dickens's own characters.”
“Even the term Dickensian is pretty meaningless, if you haven't read any Dickens. ”
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
“Make a point of using the word Dickensian in a sentence today.”
“Considering what a prolific writer Dickens was, the word Dickensian could legitimately cover a vast thematic territory, explaining at least some of the variety of its applications.”
“Now I understand why the phrase Dickensian keeps recurring in the critics reviews of the book.”
“Any novel today that has an ensemble cast and concerns itself with social matters is labelled "Dickensian".”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph
“The word Dickensian doesn't fully describe the madness of a system that cannot get rid of bad teachers.”
“Director Danny Boyle, in publicity material for a movie he called a Dickensian tale, said he shot in real, gritty locations "to show the beauty and ugliness and sheer unpredictability" of Mumbai.”
“Director Danny Boyle, in publicity material for a film he called a Dickensian tale, said he shot in real, gritty locations "to show the beauty and ugliness and sheer unpredictability" of Mumbai.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘Dickensian’.
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Artfully Eponymous Adjectives
Adjectives, such as quixotic, whose root is the name of an artist, poet, writer, or literary character.
For additional eponyms see the lists Namesakes and Lend Me Your Name. I've liste...Thoreauvian, Gradgrindian, Blytonesque, Rabelaisian, Emersonian, Byronic, Dickensian, Lovecraftian, Miltonian, Byronian, Byronesque, Flaubertian and 217 more...
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Dystopian Eponyms
Places where you wouldn't want to live.
Kafkaesque, Orwellian, Dickensian, Huxleyan, Hobbesian, Darwinian, Lovecraftian, Nietzschean, Hardyesque, Kubrickian, Reaganesque, Machiavellian and 1 more...
curtainup While Horton Foote's plays have often been called Checkhovian, Convicts, the middle play of this first part of Orphans Home Cycle has a distinctly grotesque Dickensian feel, Dec 21, 2009