Sternian

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English

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Etymology 1

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From Sterne +‎ -ian.

Adjective

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Sternian (comparative more Sternian, superlative most Sternian)

  1. Of or relating to Laurence Sterne, Irish novelist.
    • 1891 December, The Unitarian Review, volume 36, page 448:
      They were as compact as his college work had been Sternian in its discursiveness.
    • 2000, Stephen Werner, The Comic Diderot: A Reading of the Fictions, page 125:
      So too does his account of the master's pocket watch, another Sternian acquisition.
    • 2006, David J. Denby, Sentimental Narrative and the Social Order in France, 1760-1820:
      The final volume, moreover, contains a highly self-conscious, Sternian passage suggesting that the work was interrupted by some political misfortune befalling the narrator: the latter's uncle, Jean-Claude Ann'Quin Bredouille, has decided to burn the remaining memoirs and to return to his village.
    • 2006, Alessandra Tosi, Waiting for Pushkin: Russian Fiction in the Reign of Alexander I (1801-1825):
      In the opening of Bednyi Leandr, for example, the humorous voice of the narrator engages in a synchronic reflection on the act of writing in the Sternian manner.

Etymology 2

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From Stern +‎ -ian.

Adjective

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Sternian (comparative more Sternian, superlative most Sternian)

  1. Of or relating to Howard Stern (born 1954), American radio and television personality.
    • 1994, Barbara Kruger, Remote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World of Appearances:
      In fact, it is this inherited refrain, blurted out in the same tone of voice, that serves as a kind of mantra for the entire Sternian enterprise: a perpetually indicting bee in Howard's bonnet (and that hairdo is definitely a bonnet).
    • 2001, Charles Marowitz, Stage Dust: A Critic's Cultural Scrapbook from the 1990s, page 124:
      He wants to see what's bouncing around inside your blouse or dangling down your inside trouser leg and to refuse him is to take refuge in a modesty that, in a Sternian universe, is almost unbecoming.
    • 2001, Brill's Content, volume 4, page 100:
      But they add two other elements to their mix: a healthy helping of Howard Sternian locker-room talk and, much more important, a startlingly egalitarian ethic of listener participation.

Anagrams

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