Bilboesque

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/ˌbɪlboʊˈɛsk/

adjective

Reminiscent of Theodore G. Bilbo’s racist sentiment.

Scrabble 23

Meanings

adjectiveBilboesque (comparative more Bilboesque, superlative most Bilboesque)

comparative more Bilboesque · superlative most Bilboesque

  1. rareReminiscent of Theodore G. Bilbo’s racist sentiment.

    Mississippi voters gave Bilboesque Senator James O. Eastland a resounding vote of confidence; […]

    1994, John Egerton, Speak Now Against The Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South, Knopf, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    […] writing in 1968, Robert Sherrill commented upon this apparent contradiction between Eastland's public image as a Bilboesque demagogue and his private geniality: […]

    2008, Chris Myers Asch, The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer, University of North Carolina Press (2011), page 329 (endnote)

    It touches every possible nerve of a progressive Californian, whether black or white, by linking the right-to-work movement to the worst excesses of southern extremism: absurd, Bilboesque miscegenation fears; […]

    2011, Reuel Schiller, “Singing 'The Right-to-Work Blues': The Politics of Race in the Campaign for 'Voluntary Unionism' in Postwar California”, in Nelson Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, editors, The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination, University of Pennsylvania Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 156
  2. Of, relating to, or reminiscent of the character Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

    So here goes: much as Alex Ferguson and Manchester United could not afford to let their Bilboesque, talismanic striker leave the football club, Key and New Zealand could not afford to let this production take flight.

    2010 October 29, Toby Manhire, “The Hobbit hullabaloo”, in The Guardian
    2 more examples

    At the same time, Bilboesque proverbs like "Every worm has his weak spot" and "Never laugh at live dragons" use the familiar proverb form to make the unfamiliar inhabitants of the secondary world seem more matter-of-fact.

    1981, Katharyn W. Crabbe, J. R. R. Tolkien, Frederick Ungar Publishers, →ISBN, page 60

    “He’s Bilbo-esque,” the filmmaker said. “You might not always want to say that about you, right? But seriously he has the essential features of this little English gent, this country gent who is slightly old-fashioned and has to go around in the world and try to cope with it. That’s not exactly who Martin [Freeman] is as a person, but as an actor he does that so well. […]

    2011 August 23, Geoff Boucher, “‘The Hobbit’: Peter Jackson and the one true Bilbo Baggins”, in Los Angeles Times

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

Bilboesque. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bilboesque

MLA

“Bilboesque.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bilboesque. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Bilboesque,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bilboesque.

Source: Bilboesque on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.