What does "richardsonian" mean?

Of or relating to Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), American architect, or the Romanesque style that he popularised.

Richardsonian

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Of or relating to Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), American architect, or the Romanesque style that he popularised.
"A. O. Watson of Austin and Eugene T. Heiner of Houston collaborated to produce a very credible Richardsonian court house for DeWitt County in Cuero (1894 - 1896; Fig. 2.06), perhaps modeled on Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
2
Of or relating to Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), English writer known for his epistolary novels.
"In fact, Fielding's inability to understand Richardson is mainly the result of his inability to understand Richardsonian complexity of characterization."

Example

More examples

"A. O. Watson of Austin and Eugene T. Heiner of Houston collaborated to produce a very credible Richardsonian court house for DeWitt County in Cuero (1894 - 1896; Fig. 2.06), perhaps modeled on Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

Etymology

From Richardson + -ian.

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