Kafkaesque
Syllables: Kaf·ka·esque/ˌkæfkəˈʔɛsk//ˌkɑfkəˈʔɛsk/
Kafkaesque adjective: marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.
Adjective
Kafkaesque (comparative more Kafkaesque, superlative most Kafkaesque)
- Marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.
- Kafkaesque bureaucracies
- In the end, Jesus is not only a Kafkaesque, lonely, holy man, abandoned in his death and despised by his own people, but his teaching is not even considered to be like that of the Jewish Sages.2001, David Flusser, Jesus (3d ed; Jerusalem: Magnes), →ISBN, page 250
- Marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of looming danger.
- In the manner of something written by Franz Kafka.
Kafkaesque meaning in Hindi, Arabic and Persian
Kafkaesque in Hindi
- marked by menacing complexity
- काफ़कएस्क kāfkaesk
Kafkaesque in Arabic
- marked by menacing complexity
- كافايكي
Kafkaesque in Persian
- marked by menacing complexity
- کافکاوار kâfkâvâr, کافکاطور kâfkâtor
Forms of Kafkaesque
| comparative | more Kafkaesque |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Kafkaesque |
Origin of Kafkaesque
From Kafka + -esque, after writer Franz Kafka. Piecewise doublet of Kafkaish.
Words formed from Kafkaesque
Words that rhyme with Kafkaesque
- desk
- Esk
- grotesque
- lesk
- Austenesque
- blottesque
- Caravaggesque
- Chauceresque
- Daliesque
- Decameronesque
- filmesque
- goblinesque
8 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about Kafkaesque
- What does Kafkaesque mean?
- Kafkaesque means marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.
- What is Kafkaesque in Hindi?
- Kafkaesque in Hindi is काफ़कएस्क (kāfkaesk). See Kafkaesque meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is Kafkaesque?
- Kafkaesque is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce Kafkaesque?
- Kafkaesque is pronounced /ˌkæfkəˈʔɛsk/ (UK).
Words near Kafkaesque in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Kafkaesque (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: en-us-Kafkaesque-adj.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Kafkaesque.wav.
Cite this entry: “Kafkaesque.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kafkaesque. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.