Elizabethan
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From Elizabeth + -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives; and forming agent nouns), referring to Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Elizabeth II (1926–2022), and Elizabeth of Russia (1709–1762).
Base: Elizabeth
Affixes: -an
Inflected forms:
form: more Elizabethan
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most Elizabethan
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: Elizabethans
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Pertaining to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, monarch of England and Ireland, from 1558 to 1603.
pos: adj
examples: This Elizabethan Era, and all its nobleness and blessedness, came without proclamation, preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare^([sic]) was the free gift of Nature; given altogether silently;—received altogether silently, as if it had been a thing of little account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless thing.
Although the potato actually has no exciting value, it was believed, in the seventeenth century, to possess definite aphrodisiac qualities, and is frequent mentioned in this respect in Elizabethan drama.
[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because "it was wicked to dress us like charity children".
[T]he owners of Doddington Hall, in Lincolnshire, have brought the folly into the 21st century, by building a 30ft pyramid in the grounds of the Elizabethan manor.
gloss: Often preceded by new or second: pertaining to the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, monarch of the United Kingdom, from 1952 to 2022.
pos: adj
examples: Some people have expressed the hope that my reign may mark a new Elizabethan age. Frankly I do not myself feel at all like my great Tudor forbear, […] But there is at least one very significant resemblance between her age and mine. For her Kingdom, small though it may have been and poor by comparison with her European neighbours, was yet great in spirit and well endowed with men who were ready to encompass the earth.
(The second Elizabethan era, that is. I’m not a maniac.)
Not everything that occurred in the early 1950s may usefully be dubbed ‘New Elizabethan’ without emptying the concept of its meaning. […] [I]t becomes clear that British people in the 1950s looked all over for resources to fund their thinking and actions, including to Tudor revivals that were in fact much older, such as in music, and to several periods of the past that were not Elizabethan.
The Elizabethan age is slowly drawing to a close. The end of Prince Philip's long life is a dress rehearsal for its final curtain, when the country will find itself reviewing what it has become, the choices it has made. […] There is just time to see off the rotten party that brought the country low, and end the Elizabethan era with some of the optimism with which it began.
[T]he austerity and restraint of the 1940s was giving way to a more prosperous 1950s. It is perhaps no wonder, then, that the Queen's succession was hailed as the "new Elizabethan age". […] The Queen's death is bound to prompt Britain's reflection on its past, its present and its future. Time will tell what the reign of Charles III will look like, but one thing is for sure: the "new Elizabethan age" is long gone.
Today the Crown passes—as it is has done for more than a thousand years—to our new monarch, our new head of state: His Majesty King Charles III. […] And with the passing of the second Elizabethan age, we usher in a new era in the magnificent history of our great country,—exactly as Her Majesty would have wished—by saying the words … God save the King.
gloss: Pertaining to the reign of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, from 1741 to 1762.
pos: adj
examples: In any case, his [Peter III’s] action was a complete reversal of the Elizabethan policy, and his offer of unconditional peace eliminated Russia’s chance to secure concessions from Frederick.
The extent of her [Catherine the Great’s] knowledge and her appetite for reading made her one of the best-read women in Europe and the most unusual and outstanding woman in Elizabethan Russia.
When Moscow University was initially opened in 1755, its “founder” was I. I. Shuvalov (1727-1797), a prominent cultural figure in Elizabethan Russia and, with his brothers Peter and Alexander, the key political force at the court in the 1750’s.
gloss: A person (especially a writer) who lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, monarch of England and Ireland, from 1558 to 1603.
pos: noun
examples: Here too [Francis] Drake had luck: he took advantage of the Sultan of Ternate's war with the Portuguese garrison upon Tidore to make a treaty with him to sell his produce exclusively to the English. The literal-minded Elizabethans attached great importance to this: on the principle of never throwing an argument away, they regarded it as giving them a right to share in the spice-trade.
gloss: A person who lived during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, monarch of the United Kingdom, from 1952 to 2022.
pos: noun
examples: The ‘New Elizabethans’ were to be in continuity with their past, but also youthful, inventive, exploratory – a spirit most clearly to be seen in the arts.
Derived words: Elizabethan collar
Elizabethan English
Elizabethanise
Elizabethanize
elizabethanize
Elizabethanism
Elizabethanness
Elizabethan sonnet
Jacobethan
Tudorbethan
Translations: