Gatsbyesque

comparative more Gatsbyesque · superlative most Gatsbyesque

1. Suggestive of Jay Gatsby, the titular character of the novel The Great Gatsby (1925): enigmatic; extravagant; nouveau riche, etc.

   And meanwhile there was in him [Carter Burden] a theatrical hunger; the Gatsbyesque demand: "I was very conscious of stars."

   1970 January 19, Julie Baumgold, “Carterandamanda: Learning the New York Lesson”, in Clay S[chuette] Felker, editor, New York, volume 3, number 3, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27, column 3

   3 more examples

   During the first half of the century, Princeton and Cornell joined forces every third and fourth years for home-and-away dual meets with the two English schools [Oxford University and Cambridge University]. It was a sort of Gatsbyesque ideal, featuring a long trip on a luxury liner, and a classic mile matchup between Jack Lovelock of Cambridge and Bill Bonthron '34 even produced a world mile record by the former.

   1980 May 19, Phil Ponebshek, “Battle for Berths to Britain”, in Charles L. Creesy, editor, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18, column 1

   There was a Gatsbyesque quality to this relatively poor Midwestern boy [George Frost Kennan] who recreated himself as an aristocratic, European-oriented, conservative member of America's leadership class yet never lost a sense of belonging.

   1995, Tom Engelhardt, “X Marks the Spot”, in The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, part II (Containments 1945–1962), page 92

   A perpetual bachelor, his named popped up with some frequency in the society pages of the New York papers. Effortlessly, it seemed, Peter Gordon Mackenzie had propelled himself from a jute trader on a gloomy island in the Outer Hebrides to a life of Gatsbyesque splendor at the height of the Gilded Age.

   2021, Amanda Frost, “Citizen Suffragist”, in You are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers, Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, →ISBN, page 80

   Synonyms: Gatsbyan, Gatsbyish