Word.ws English Dictionary

Tristanian

Tristanian adjective: of or pertaining to Sir Tristan, legendary Arthurian knight and tragic hero of the mediaeval romance Tristan and Iseult.

Adjective

Tristanian (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to Sir Tristan, legendary Arthurian knight and tragic hero of the mediaeval romance Tristan and Iseult.
    • With this assumption, that Tintagel haunted Hardy from 1870 to 1923, it becomes possible to suggest that not only was his Tristanian work infused with his life-long themes, but that Tristanian themes may have subtly influenced his earlier works as well.2001, Bonnie Wheeler, Fiona Tolhurst (editors), On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Maureen Fries, Scriptorium Press, page 274
    • Although Brugger had already expressed this idea, it was because of Bedier's work that academics began to see Tristanian poems as unified literary works with a coherent narrative thread from the lovers' first meeting to their inevitable death:2008, Isabel DiVanna, Reconstructing the Middle Ages, Cambridge Scholars, page 157
  2. Of or pertaining to the Atlantic archipelago Tristan da Cunha or its inhabitants.
    • One of the curiosities of Tristanian English is the inclusion of an 'h' at the start of words that begin with a vowel.2003, Ben Fogle, The Teatime Islands: Journeys to Britain's Faraway Outposts, Michael Joseph, page 36

Noun

Tristanian (plural Tristanians)

  1. An inhabitant of Tristan da Cunha.
    • The Tristanians were to occupy some fifty neat modern houses in the former Married Quarters inside the high-fenced compound.1964, Margaret Mackprang Mackay, Angry Island, Rand McNally, page 256
    • After having lived among the Tristanians for half a year, I am under the impression that, due to their experiences in the outside world, younger Tristanians have developed a stylistic range that is limited in the speech of non-mobile members of the community.2003, Daniel Schreier, Isolation and Language Change: Contemporary and Sociohistorical Evidence from Tristan da Cunha English, Springer Nature (Palgrave MacMillan), page 205
    Synonyms:
    Tristanite

Synonyms of Tristanian

  • Tristanite

Forms of Tristanian

pluralTristanians

Origin of Tristanian

From Tristan + -ian.

Questions about Tristanian

What does Tristanian mean?
Tristanian means of or pertaining to Sir Tristan, legendary Arthurian knight and tragic hero of the mediaeval romance Tristan and Iseult.
What part of speech is Tristanian?
Tristanian can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near Tristanian in the dictionary

  1. Tristan
  2. Tristan chord
  3. Tristan chords
  4. Tristan da Cunha
  5. Tristanesque
  6. Tristanian
  7. Tristanians
  8. Tristans
  9. tristar
  10. tristate
  11. tristated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tristanian (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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