Word.ws English Dictionary

Heathcliffian

Heathcliffian adjective: having characteristics similar to the character Heathcliff, especially dark, brooding, intense, tortured, possessive, aggressive, and/or uncivilized.

Adjective

Heathcliffian (comparative more Heathcliffian, superlative most Heathcliffian)

  1. Having characteristics similar to the character Heathcliff, especially dark, brooding, intense, tortured, possessive, aggressive, and/or uncivilized.
    • Hindley occupies a place at the Heathcliffian end of the spectrum and, like Heathcliff, is both aggressive and competitive, although insecurely so.1993, Harold Bloom, Heathcliff, page 54
    • I guess you could call him handsome in a dark, Heathcliffian way.2000, John Bishop Ballem, John Ballem, Manchineel, →ISBN, page 152

Forms of Heathcliffian

comparativemore Heathcliffian
superlativemost Heathcliffian

Origin of Heathcliffian

From the character in Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights.

Questions about Heathcliffian

What does Heathcliffian mean?
Heathcliffian means having characteristics similar to the character Heathcliff, especially dark, brooding, intense, tortured, possessive, aggressive, and/or uncivilized.
What part of speech is Heathcliffian?
Heathcliffian is an adjective.

Words near Heathcliffian in the dictionary

  1. heath-wren
  2. heathberries
  3. heathberry
  4. heathclad
  5. Heathcliff
  6. Heathcliffian
  7. heathcock
  8. heathcocks
  9. Heathcote
  10. Heathcote Junction
  11. Heathcote South

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Heathcliffian (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.

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