Heathcliffian
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From the character in Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights.
Adjective
[edit]Heathcliffian (comparative more Heathcliffian, superlative most Heathcliffian)
- Having characteristics similar to the character Heathcliff, especially dark, brooding, intense, tortured, possessive, aggressive, and/or uncivilized.
- 1993, Harold Bloom, Heathcliff, page 54:
- Hindley occupies a place at the Heathcliffian end of the spectrum and, like Heathcliff, is both aggressive and competitive, although insecurely so.
- 2000, John Bishop Ballem, John Ballem, Manchineel, →ISBN, page 152:
- I guess you could call him handsome in a dark, Heathcliffian way.
- 2014, Suzanne Ruthven, Charnel House Blues: The Vampyre's Tale, →ISBN:
- The Grand Tour introduced the young bloods of England — whose acquaintance I made in large numbers — to crumbling architecture and Gothic ruins and, as a result, on their return they transformed their country estates into “a cross between the House of Usher and Wuthering Heights, a Heathcliffian blend of artificial mountains, lonely moors and decayed ruins.
- 2018, Kate Atkinson, Transcription, →ISBN, page 70:
- Perry himself was not entirely without Heathcliffian qualities — the absence of levity, the ruthless disregard for a girl's comfort, the way he had of scrutinizing you as if you were a puzzle to be solved.