Lynchian
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Australia/ˈlɪntʃiːən/
Lynchian adjective: of or pertaining to David Keith Lynch (1946–2025), American filmmaker and director whose surrealist films are characterized by dreamlike imagery, sound design, and narrative, juxtapositions of the mundane and the grotesque, and an air of mystery or unease.
Adjective
Lynchian (comparative more Lynchian, superlative most Lynchian)
- Of or pertaining to David Keith Lynch (1946–2025), American filmmaker and director whose surrealist films are characterized by dreamlike imagery, sound design, and narrative, juxtapositions of the mundane and the grotesque, and an air of mystery or unease.
- An academic definition of Lynchian might be that “the term refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter.” […] Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victim’s various anatomies neatly...1996 September, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in Premiere, →ISSN
- My relationship towards tulips is inherently Lynchian. I think they are disgusting. Just imagine. Aren't these some kind of, how do you call it, vagina dentata, dental vaginas threatening to swallow you?2006, Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
Examples of Lynchian in a sentence
- Lynchian sound practice is even more specialised.2008, Andrew Dix, Beginning Film Studies, Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 154:
- This is not the first time, however, that the Trump Presidency has put me in mind of the Lynchian world.2018 June 29, Dennis Lim, “Donald Trump's America and the Visions of David Lynch”, in The New Yorker:
- Lynchian is the go-to adjective to describe any sniff of the uncanny and esoteric on screen, from Donnie Darko to True Detective.2023 January 9, Phil Hoad, “Deviant obsessions: how David Lynch predicted our fragmented times”, in The Guardian:
- Put it this way: “Lynchian” evokes the bland wholesomeness of an American Midwestern suburb, wrapped around something unnaturally vile — the discovery of five stray molars in a tuna casserole.2025 January 17, Alissa Wilkinson, “5 Scenes That Define David Lynch’s Singular Vision”, in The New York Times:
Forms of Lynchian
| comparative | more Lynchian |
|---|---|
| superlative | most Lynchian |
Origin of Lynchian
From Lynch + -ian.
Questions about Lynchian
- What does Lynchian mean?
- Lynchian means of or pertaining to David Keith Lynch (1946–2025), American filmmaker and director whose surrealist films are characterized by dreamlike imagery, sound design, and narrative, juxtapositions of the mundane and the grotesque, and an air of mystery or unease.
- How do you use Lynchian in a sentence?
- Lynchian sound practice is even more specialised.
- What part of speech is Lynchian?
- Lynchian is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce Lynchian?
- Lynchian is pronounced /ˈlɪntʃiːən/ (Australia).
Words near Lynchian in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Lynchian (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Lynchian.wav.
Cite this entry: “Lynchian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lynchian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.