Word.ws English Dictionary

-esque

/ɛsk/

-esque suffix: in the style or manner of; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives.

Suffix

-esque (adjective-forming suffix, comparative more -esque, superlative most -esque)

  1. In the style or manner of; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives.
    • Kafkaesque
    • When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator.2012 August 21, Jason Heller, “The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 30 Mar 2013
  2. Resembling; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives.
    • Needless to say, Mr. T abstained from the "Wolf of Wall Street"-esque extracurriculars on grounds that he didn't agree with Cubik Partners' definition of "fun," per his testimony in court.2022 November 25, B. Cost, “Man wins legal right to be 'boring' at work, gets $3K from company”, in New York Post, NYP Holdings, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2025, retrieved 27 Nov 2022
    • But amid all the disruption and norm-breaking, it’s Mr. Trump’s apparently keen interest in shaping American culture that may be most intriguing. To critics, it’s nothing less than a sign of his authoritarian bent – reminiscent of the Stalin-esque playbook that made government diktats over artistic...2025 April 17, Linda Feldmann, “How Donald Trump is upending American culture”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2025

Synonyms of -esque

All synonyms of -esque

Forms of -esque

comparativemore -esque
superlativemost -esque
alternative form (rare)-esq'

Origin of -esque

Borrowed from French -esque (“-ish, -ic, -esque”), from Italian -esco, from Latin -iscus, of Germanic origin, from Lombardic -isc (“-ish”), from Proto-West Germanic *-isk, from Proto-Germanic *-iskaz (“-ish”), from Proto-Indo-European *-iskos. Cognate with Old High German -isc (German -isch), Old English -isċ, Old Norse -iskr, Gothic -𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (-isks). Doublet of -ish and -ski.

Questions about -esque

What does -esque mean?
-esque means in the style or manner of; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives.
What part of speech is -esque?
-esque is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -esque?
-esque is pronounced /ɛsk/.

Words near -esque in the dictionary

  1. -escent
  2. -esces
  3. -escing
  4. -ese
  5. -esis
  6. -esque
  7. -ess
  8. -esse
  9. -esses
  10. -est
  11. -estan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -esque (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--esque.wav.

Cite this entry: “-esque.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-esque. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.