Sternian

English

Etymology 1

Sterne +‎ -ian

Adjective

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

Stern +‎ -ian

Adjective

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

• Ernstian, Tiernans, Trannies, entrains, trannies