Word.ws English Dictionary

Radcliffian

Radcliffian adjective: of or pertaining to Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), English pioneer of the Gothic novel.

Adjective

Radcliffian (comparative more Radcliffian, superlative most Radcliffian)

  1. Of or pertaining to Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), English pioneer of the Gothic novel.
    • And yet the cause, necessarily to be assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much charged with that prime element of Radcliffian romance, the mysterious, as any that the ingenuity of the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho could devise.1924, Herman Melville, chapter 10, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.

Forms of Radcliffian

comparativemore Radcliffian
superlativemost Radcliffian
alternative formRadcliffean

Origin of Radcliffian

From Radcliffe + -ian.

Questions about Radcliffian

What does Radcliffian mean?
Radcliffian means of or pertaining to Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), English pioneer of the Gothic novel.
What part of speech is Radcliffian?
Radcliffian is an adjective.

Words near Radcliffian in the dictionary

  1. Radcliff
  2. Radcliffe
  3. Radcliffe Line
  4. Radcliffe on Trent
  5. Radcliffean
  6. Radcliffian
  7. Radcliffs
  8. Radclive
  9. Radclive-cum-Chackmore
  10. Raddall
  11. Raddatz

Source and license

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