Austenish

English

Alternative forms

• Austen-ish

Etymology

From Austen +‎ -ish.

Adjective

Austenish (comparative more Austenish, superlative most Austenish)

1. Reminiscent of the works of Jane Austen (1775–1817), English novelist noted for realism and biting social commentary.
   • 1968, Irvin Stock, Mary McCarthy, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 25:

     And she gives us the peculiarly Austenish pleasure of watching good, intelligent, and articulate people work their way through much painful error to the relief of shared understanding.

   • 1993, Anne D. Wallace, Walking, Literature, and English Culture: The Origins and Uses of Peripatetic in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, pages 212–213:

     The Egoist takes place in an Austenish world of country houses—more than Austenish, indeed, for despite Williams’s depreciating comment that Austen’s ‘country is weather or a place for a walk’, her walks at least strike out across fields and take to public roads.

   • 2013, Ralph Crane, Radhika Mohanram, Imperialism as Diaspora: Race, Sexuality, and History in Anglo-India, Liverpool University Press, →ISBN, page 104:

     For instance, Mrs Williams is described in an Austenish vein early in the text as ‘a little insignificant “nobody,” the daughter of a missionary, having neither connections nor money, nothing in the world to her advantage save a singularly pretty face’ (9) – a description that, following the death of her grandmother, describes Anne, too, who suddenly finds herself the daughter of a missionary, with few connections and less money, but still in possession of a pretty face.

Synonyms

• Austenesque, Jane Austen-esque
• Austenian, Jane Austenian
• Miss Austenish, Jane Austenish