Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to Caligula (AD 12-41), Roman Emperor.
  • adjective Brutally cruel and tyrannical.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Caligula +‎ -an

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Examples

  • The latter manned the Mojo Wire as Thompson called their primitive fax system in the middle of the night, coaxing one paragraph at a time from his frenzied deadline-deranged star writer, later haggling over Thompson's lavish rental cars—which he wasn't above abandoning at any convenient point—and Caligulan room-service tabs, as Thompson cranked out one epic after another.

    Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride Matt Labash 2011

  • Uday's a handful, living out some Baathist-inflected fantasia on De Palma's Scarface, shooting off guns indoors, plucking schoolgirls off the streets and raping them, exercising Caligulan droit du seigneur over a war hero's new bride, prompting her suicide, and mutilating and disembowelling his own dad's food-taster at a banquet to honour Mrs Hosni Mubarak par-TAY!

    The Devil's Double and more movies on the megalomaniacal 2011

  • Today's financial porn -- Prechter's predictions of a 1,000 Dow, with everyone urged to head for the back woods, rifle in hand -- is at the other end of the porn scale from those Caligulan romps of yore.

    Top Five Financial Pornographers 2010

  • It's your nasty little job, and the latte fumes meandering up from your cups have always masked the smell of spilt blood... because what YOU are endorsing is nothing more nor less than the continuation of Wolfowitz's lethal Caligulan fantasy in Iraq to save capitalism from its own dirty, dangerous, and expensive messes.

    "Naming names and telling it like it is." Michael Caddell 2005

  • It's your nasty little job, and the latte fumes meandering up from your cups have always masked the smell of spilt blood... because what YOU are endorsing is nothing more nor less than the continuation of Wolfowitz's lethal Caligulan fantasy in Iraq to save capitalism from its own dirty, dangerous, and expensive messes.

    Archive 2005-04-01 Michael Caddell 2005

  • Girlish youths and Rubens-esque ladies formed a frame around scenes of Caligulan excess, where satyrs had their way with women deprived of their togas, and centaurs carried off drunken revellers.

    The Vesuvius Club Mark Gatiss 2004

  • Girlish youths and Rubens-esque ladies formed a frame around scenes of Caligulan excess, where satyrs had their way with women deprived of their togas, and centaurs carried off drunken revellers.

    The Vesuvius Club Mark Gatiss 2004

  • He alone never seeks in abnormal and monstrous characters to evade the risks and responsibilities of absolute truthfulness, nor to stimulate a jaded imagination by Caligulan horrors of plot.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 Various

  • Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was published in May 2009 - with its analysis of accusations of abuse made by individuals who had attended Irish reform schools between 1940 and 1999 - the media reported it as if it had uncovered apocalyptic, Caligulan levels of sexual depravity.

    Latest Articles 2010

  • Las Vegas, promising a wallow in Caligulan depravity (plus comped buffets!).

    Broward-Palm Beach New Times | Complete Issue 2009

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