Word.ws English Dictionary

Messalinian

Messalinian adjective: reminiscent of Messalina; scheming and lascivious.

Adjective

Messalinian (comparative more Messalinian, superlative most Messalinian)

  1. Reminiscent of Messalina; scheming and lascivious.
    • The infamous transaction of the necklace […], with her messalinian feasts at Trianon, made her the common mark of ridicule and satire.1794, Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution
    • [T]he fine features were lost in superabundant fat, and the expression of them was such as I care not to defile my pen by describing, unless I call it Messalinian […].1859, Berkeley Aikin, The Dean

Forms of Messalinian

comparativemore Messalinian
superlativemost Messalinian

Origin of Messalinian

From Messalina + -ian.

Questions about Messalinian

What does Messalinian mean?
Messalinian means reminiscent of Messalina; scheming and lascivious.
What part of speech is Messalinian?
Messalinian is an adjective.

Words near Messalinian in the dictionary

  1. Messalians
  2. Messalina complex
  3. Messalina complexes
  4. messaline
  5. messalines
  6. Messalinian
  7. messan
  8. messangial
  9. messans
  10. Messapian
  11. Messapians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Messalinian (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: “Messalinian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/messalinian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.