Balzacian

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Of or relating to the French novelist Honoré de Balzac or to the detailed, panoramic realism of his fiction
2. Describing something in the manner of Honoré de Balzac, with richly observed social detail and sprawling human comedy
3. Characteristic of the writings of Balzac, marked by meticulous portrayal of French society and its ambitious, money-driven characters

Etymology: Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist who died in 1850, gave his name to an adjective that describes a particular kind of social ambition: grand, crowded, and driven by money and rank. The name itself is a straightforward case of a surname becoming a descriptive word, with the suffix "-ian" attached to "Balzac" to mean "of or relating to" the writer and his world. The suffix has a long lineage. "-ian" was borrowed into English from Latin "-ianus", which itself was formed from an earlier Latin "-iānus" and grew out of the older "-ius" and "-ios" endings found in Italic languages. English adopted it widely to turn proper names into adjectives, as in "Shakespearean" or "Darwinian", so "Balzacian" follows a well-worn pattern.