-esque

//ɛsk// suffix

suffix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Suffix
  1. 1
    In the style or manner of; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives. morpheme

    "Kafkaesque"

  2. 2
    Resembling; appended to nouns, especially proper nouns, and forming adjectives. morpheme

    "Needless to say, Mr. T abstained from the "Wolf of Wall Street"-esque extracurriculars on grounds that he didn't agree with Cubik Partners' definition of "fun," per his testimony in court."

Synonyms

All synonyms
assformiformishlikely

Example

More examples

"When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator."

Etymology

Borrowed from French -esque (“-ish, -ic, -esque”), from Italian -esco, from Latin -iscus, of Germanic origin, from Lombardic -isc (“-ish”), from Proto-West Germanic *-isk, from Proto-Germanic *-iskaz (“-ish”), from Proto-Indo-European *-iskos. Cognate with Old High German -isc (German -isch), Old English -isċ, Old Norse -iskr, Gothic -𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (-isks). Doublet of -ish and -ski.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.