Zeligesque
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Of a person: appearing at a surprisingly wide variety of historic events or with a diverse group of historic figures.
"Simply put, Mr. [Edmund] Morris has invented a character: himself. For literary purposes, the author, 59, has essentially transformed his own life, […] revised his age, birthplace, identity and resume to become a Zeligesque narrator who is a [Ronald] Reagan contemporary, glimpsing the future President on a Dixon High School football field; bumping into him beneath the elms of his Illinois alma mater, Eureka College; reporting for duty to Lieutenant at the Army Air Force's first motion picture unit."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Simply put, Mr. [Edmund] Morris has invented a character: himself. For literary purposes, the author, 59, has essentially transformed his own life, […] revised his age, birthplace, identity and resume to become a Zeligesque narrator who is a [Ronald] Reagan contemporary, glimpsing the future President on a Dixon High School football field; bumping into him beneath the elms of his Illinois alma mater, Eureka College; reporting for duty to Lieutenant at the Army Air Force's first motion picture unit."
Etymology
From Zelig + -esque (suffix meaning ‘in the manner or style of’, forming adjectives from nouns (especially proper nouns)), referring to the character Leonard Zelig from the 1983 film Zelig who meets many famous people in the 1920s and 1930s and, apparently out of his desire to fit in and be liked, unwittingly takes on the characteristics of the strong personalities around him.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.