Gileadean
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An inhabitant of the fictional theocratic dystopian nation of Gilead in Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale.
"If I may be permitted an editorial aside, allow me to say that in my opinion we must be cautious about passing moral judgement upon the Gileadeans."
- 1 Of, related to, or characteristic of the fictional theocratic dystopian nation of Gilead in Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale.
"Strictly speaking, it was not a manuscript at all when first discovered, and bore no title. The superscription “The Handmaid’s Tale” was appended to it by Professor Wade, partly in homage to the great Geoffrey Chaucer; but those of you who know Professor Wade informally, as I do, will understand when I say that I am sure all puns were intentional, particularly that having to do with the archaic vulgar signification of the word tail; that being, to some extent, the bone, as it were, of contention, in that phase of Gileadean society of which our saga treats."
Example
More examples"Strictly speaking, it was not a manuscript at all when first discovered, and bore no title. The superscription “The Handmaid’s Tale” was appended to it by Professor Wade, partly in homage to the great Geoffrey Chaucer; but those of you who know Professor Wade informally, as I do, will understand when I say that I am sure all puns were intentional, particularly that having to do with the archaic vulgar signification of the word tail; that being, to some extent, the bone, as it were, of contention, in that phase of Gileadean society of which our saga treats."
Etymology
From Gilead + -ean.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.