Elizabethian

English

Etymology

From Elizabeth +‎ -ian (suffix meaning ‘from; like; related to’ forming adjectives), referring to Elizabeth I (1533–1603).

Adjective

Elizabethian (comparative more Elizabethian, superlative most Elizabethian)

1. Synonym of Elizabethan (“pertaining to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, monarch of England and Ireland, from 1558 to 1603”)
   • 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, chapter 22, in Biographia Literaria, published 1983, page 146:

     Both in respect of this and of the former excellence, Mr. Wordsworth strikingly resembles Samuel Daniel, one of the golden writers of our golden Elizabethian age, now most causelessly neglected: […]

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:

     This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethian Era, worse remains behind.

   • 1995, Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music, page 33:

     The correlation between costume and musical category is so strong that a hearing-impaired person could usually identify style and category by noting whether the musicians wear tuxedos, blazers, turtlenecks, robes, dhotis, Elizabethian garb, T-shirts with holes, or leather jackets.