Rowlingian

English

Etymology

From Rowling +‎ -ian.

Adjective

Rowlingian (comparative more Rowlingian, superlative most Rowlingian)

1. Characteristic of J. K. Rowling (born 1965), British author, philanthropist, film producer, and screenwriter.
   • 2000, The Classical Outlook, volume 78/79, American Classical League, page 94, column 1:

     “Nigidius Potter” sounds like a good Rowlingian name, and Publius Nigidius Potter, the friend of Cicero who died in exile in 45 BC, was indeed a wizard.

   • 2007 October 5, Chris Knight, “Too much magic for one kid to handle”, in National Post, volume 9, number 288, page PM7, column 2:

     In any case, having established its Rowlingian street cred, the film then does what Potter’s adaptors never dared, and turns its protagonist from an 11-year-old British boy into a 13-year-old American one, thus combining old English charm and Connecticut Yankee ingenuity like nothing since Arthurian times.

   • 2011, Tison Pugh, “Dumbledore’s Queer Ghost: Homosexuality and Its Heterosexual Afterlives in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels”, in Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the Queerness of Children’s Literature, New York, N.Y., London: Routledge, →ISBN, page 93:

     Auntie Muriel taunts Doge about his youthful dedication to Dumbledore, dismissing his affections (“Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore” [DH 154]), and Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth more colorfully condemns Doge’s affection for Albus: “Thought the sun shone out of my brother’s every orifice, he did” (DH 563). This line, with typical Rowlingian ambiguity, hints at an anal attraction while refusing to state it.

   • 2011, Michael G. Gaunt, “Perspectives: Old English and Middle English”, in Lightning Literature & Composition: British Medieval: Student’s Guide, 2nd edition, Washougal, Wash.: Hewitt Homeschooling, →ISBN, unit 1, lesson 2 (Anglo-Saxon Riddles), page 56:

     As we refer to “Shakespearean” English, perhaps those future English speakers will refer to “Rowlingian” English (after the author of the Harry Potter books).

   • 2012 September 29, Maddie Crum, “'The Casual Vacancy': Harry Potter Fans Will Enjoy JK Rowling's New Book”, in HuffPost‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 June 2022:

     Broad-stroke storytelling, a critical eye turned towards class differences and tender moments between friends? That's positively Rowlingian!

   • 2015, Dagmar Hofmann, “The Phoenix, the Werewolf and the Centaur: The Reception of Mythical Beasts in the Harry Potter Novels and their Film Adapatations”, in Filippo Carlà, Irene Berti, editors, Ancient Magic and the Supernatural in the Modern Visual and Performing Arts, Bloomsbury Academic, published 2016, →ISBN, page 173:

     The healing power of tears has never been a characteristic of the phoenix in its long development of reception and it is obviously a modern or even ‘Rowlingian’ invention.

   • 2017, Fiona McCulloch, “‘We’re All Human, Aren’t We?’: Scottish Cosmopolitics in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter”, in Contemporary British Children’s Fiction and Cosmopolitanism (Children’s Literature and Culture), New York, N.Y., London: Routledge, →ISBN, part I (Ethical Endeavours), pages 37–38:

     Downes’s desire for narratological absolutes continues with an attack on Rowling’s thematic uncertainties regarding issues such as race, where ‘Rowlingian political correctness, like Rowlingian magic, is a mere superaddition, a futile attempt to control the damage done by a foundational decision not to create a secondary world worthy of the name’ (Downes 173). On the contrary, Rowling’s fusion of realism and fantasy within a Scottish gothic mode enhances the dialogical dynamics of cultural exchange in a series that is rich in its refusal to offer closure and fixed certainties in its engagement with a contemporary world which, similarly, offers no such thing.

Synonyms

• Rowlingesque