Gilbertian
- adjective
- /ɡɪlˈbɜrʧən/
- Literature
:
gilbertiano
- Her latest work is a Gilbertian comedy that parodies the conventions of Victorian operas.
Examples
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The play featured a Gilbertian twist that left the audience in stitches with its clever satire.
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Koko burst this bubble in his "little list," while another Gilbertian character, the sham-sensitive poet Reginald Bunthorne, understood the path of exploitation: PREFORMATTED TABLE
Academic text (1990) -
Just to be sure that I had not been displaying unique opacity during all these years of incomprehension, I asked four friends of reasonable intelligence and good Gilbertian knowledge—and not one had ever recognized the structure behind the Captain's puzzlement.
Academic text (2000) -
The author's style is distinctly Gilbertian, filled with witty dialogue and absurd situations.
How Comic
Surface Forms
Morphology
Gilbertian = Gilbert (transparent) = Gilbert + ian
Formed by attaching the productive adjective-forming suffix '-ian' to the proper name 'Gilbert', meaning 'relating to Gilbert', which is directly understandable.
Etymology
Gilbertian comes from the name Gilbert and the ending -ian, which means 'like' or 'relating to'. W. S. Gilbert wrote funny, clever operas and plays with sharp humour and strange, exaggerated characters, so Gilbertian means something is witty, gently mocking and a little absurd, in short 'like Gilbert'.