Dumbledorean
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more Dumbledorean
form: most Dumbledorean
Etymology: From Dumbledore + -an.
Senses: examples: text: Harry’s idol, headmaster Albus Dumbledore, stakes out the anti-Dursley position most clearly when he explains to Harry his reasons for destroying the Sorcerer’s Stone of the first novel’s title: “As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all—the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them” (Sorcerer’s Stone, 297). Readers who see Rowling’s fantasy world as more pure than our reality can turn to such Dumbledorean paradoxes, worthy of Tolkien’s Gandalf or Susan Cooper’s Merriman, for evidence.
ref: 2002, Lana A. Whited, editor, The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, Columbia, Mo.; London: University of Missouri Press, →ISBN, pages 338–339:
text: What complicates this Dumbledorean strategy of inoculation is that, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hogwarts itself is exposed as always/already infected by injustice. It might not be as rank as that of the Dementors; but it is severe enough to call into question Dumbledore’s (and Hogwarts’) claims of occupying the high moral ground.
ref: 2007, William P. MacNeil, Lex Populi: The Jurisprudence of Popular Culture, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 17:
text: In the queue that had been formed by fans from around the world outside Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, yesterday, surrounded by children and young adults alike dressed in Dumbledorean beards and flowing robes, I felt quite at home.
ref: 2007 July 21, Jerome Taylor, “I fell for Harry Potter, and now he’s left me”, in The Independent, number 6,478, page 8:
text: A number of important people take a sudden interest in her, including an icy but not terribly effective Nicole Kidman, Lyra’s purposeful uncle played by Daniel Craig, a Dumbledorean headmaster, the parents of a friend, a polar bear out of those Coca-Cola ads, a flying witch and Sam Elliott, who seems to have stumbled in from a cowboy movie.
ref: 2007 December 7, Daniel Neman, “Lost in translation: ‘Golden Compass’ doesn’t fare well in its journey from book to big screen”, in Richmond Times-Dispatch, page C1:
text: The Sorting Hat’s song, with its Dumbledorean pleas for unity and its allusions to the coming war, certainly foreshadows events in the final two books.
ref: 2009, James W. Thomas, Repotting Harry Potter: A Professor’s Book-by-Book Guide for the Serious Re-Reader, Zossima Press, →ISBN, page 196:
text: The truth is, while I’ve known a few administrators who were Dumbledore-esque, I’ve also seen my share of Umbridges. Most campus officials, frankly, fall somewhere in between, but I like to think that a heartening number have Dumbledorean potential.
ref: 2010, Rob Jenkins, Building a Career in America’s Community Colleges, Community College Press, →ISBN, page 135:
text: While there’s no Dumbledorean magic in these mysteries, Rowling’s earthbound Muggles — most notably the detective himself — are nearly as bewitching as the headmaster of Hogwarts.
ref: 2014 June 29, Jenni Laidman, “Surgical Strike”, in Chicago Tribune, 167th year, number 180, section “Printers Row”, page 22, column 1:
text: Still, the placebo effect demonstrates the power of the mind to shape matter, fiction to create fact, theater (Dumbledorean robes and phony magic wands and Enyaesque music) to dictate the examining room (where crisp white coats, stethoscopes, and Muzak usually reign).
ref: 2015, Eric G. Wilson, Keep It Fake: Inventing an Authentic Life, New York, N.Y.: Sarah Crichton Books, →ISBN, page 130:
text: You made me finally understand the impulse to show people baby photos, because I accosted everyone I spoke to in the last year to show them your Dumbledorean masterpiece.
ref: 2018, Irvin Khaytman, The Life and Lies of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, →ISBN:
glosses: Alternative form of Dumbledorian.