Potteresque

comparative more Potteresque · superlative most Potteresque · alternative Potter-esque

1. Resembling or characteristic of the Harry Potter series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling.

   GRYFFINDOR GRUNGE: Joe and Paul’s Potteresque style gets kids listening.

   2005 June 6, Rachel Deahl, “Wizards Of Rock”, in Express (a publication of The Washington Post), page 16

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   A young teen who reads Rowling’s books, for example, might seek a Potteresque type of excitement by joining the London-based Ordo Anno Mundi (OAM), a sect of occultists who practice Ophidian Witchcraft (i.e., serpent-venerating). Like Hogwarts, which takes its wizards through seven years of training, the OAM has seven degrees of “Magical Training” that include classes strikingly similar to those offered at Hogwarts: […]

   2001, Richard Abanes, Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace behind the Magick, Camp Hill, Pa.: Horizon Books, →ISBN, pages 126–127

   Joanne was delighted at the choice of Daniel as she was with the ten-year-old Emma Watson and eleven-year-old Rupert Grint – a Potteresque name if ever there was one – to play Hermione and Ron.

   2001, Sean Smith, J. K. Rowling: A Biography, Michael O’Mara Books Limited, →ISBN, page 178

   Marketing is inherently mysterious, and we forget this at our peril. It is mysterious not only in the sense that we still don’t know how advertising works, why Potteresque fads and crazes occur, or what the marketing philosophy is, exactly.

   2005, Stephen Brown, Wizard!: Harry Potter’s Brand Magic (Great Brand Stories), Cyan Books, →ISBN, page 175

   Later in the day (hopefully after a solid night’s sleep, rather than any Potteresque nocturnal adventures) the children will return to the Great Hall of the castle for a Hogwarts-style banquet.

   2005 June, Tanya Brown, “UK Report”, in Chronicle, number 260, DNA Publications, Inc., page 30, column 3

   If live-action debutant Andrew Adamson and his team can spin the numbers right, a franchise is born of Potteresque proportions that will make the Rings look like a quota quickie.

   2006 April, Nick Lowe, “Mutant Popcorn”, in Interzone, number 203, page 68, column 1

   Synonyms: Harry Potteresque, Harry Potterish

2. Resembling or characteristic of the eponymous fictional character Harry Potter from the series.

   Advaita Gyan, 23, tall and gangly, with a prominent nose on which a pair of Potteresque specs perched, stood up abruptly, the carefully arranged papers in front of her scattering to the floor.

   2019, Saundarya Rajesh, “Prelude: The CEO’S Townhall”, in The 99 Day Diversity Challenge: Creating an Inclusive Workplace, Penguin Business, published 2023, →ISBN

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   With ages ranging from an angelic 18 months old up to 11, there was a cluster of capes, a clutter of broomsticks – one or two Nimbus 2000s among them – and a veritable sea of Potter[-]esque glasses.

   2001 November 16, Gareth Dant, “Doubles enjoy a wizard evening”, in The Northern Echo, Darlington, Durham, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9, column 1

   One article declares that “Harry Potter has had a positive effect on the eye health of children around the world.” Kids wearing glasses are no longer the victims of playground banter. Potteresque glasses with extra-thick round frames are cool.

   2009, Anne Galligan, “Pottermania: The Marketing behind the Magic”, in Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, 6th edition, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Bedford/St. Martin’s, →ISBN, page 133

   Synonyms: Harry Potteresque, Harry Potterish

3. Resembling or characteristic of English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist Dennis Potter (1935–1994).

   The film boasts a militantly capricious and typically Potteresque innovation: all the characters speak in iambic pentameter.

   2007, Richard Armstrong, Tom Charity, Lloyd Hughes, Jessica Winter, The Rough Guide to Film, Rough Guides, →ISBN, page 430, column 1

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   Dennis Potter has now defeated this shabby scheme by exposing it, though we must not be too sure that he has actually done us a good turn, because in the next sentence he tells us that the whole dirty deal ‘is an understandable and sometimes legitimate one within the framework and momentum of gradualist and democratic Socialism’. This typically Potteresque method of stating the case leaves us in some doubt as to whether, overwhelmed by nausea, he is condemning the transaction, or whether he regards it as a necessary bit of business.

   1984, Brian Walden, “Potter and Potterism”, in Andrew Billen, Mark Skipworth, editors, Oxford Type: An Anthology of Isis, the Oxford University Magazine, Robson Books, →ISBN, page 156

   But Millar, the director, who has a lovely touch with Dodgson and the Dean’s little daughters, doesn’t seem to know what to make of Potter’s quirky affection for Hollywood’s exhausted conventions, and Mrs. Hargreaves’ Potteresque adventures in the Art Deco New York wonderland have wobbly tonalities.

   1994, Pauline Kael, For Keeps, Dutton, →ISBN, page 1085

   Because Daniel’s memory does not remember events in a logical and chronological manner, we are given the past through a series of typically Potteresque ‘flashbacks’ and ‘flash forwards’.

   1998, Glen Creeber, “‘Reality or Nothing’?: Dennis Potter’s Cold Lazarus”, in Mike Wayne, editor, Dissident Voices: The Politics of Television and Cultural Change, London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, →ISBN, page 21

   Four years after the Continental breakfast he made of Alan Ayckbourn’s Smokmg/No Smoking comes this rattling merry-go-round of romantic intrigue, “inspired by the work of Dennis Potter”, and featuring a lot of Potteresque lip-synching to popular French show tunes.

   1998 December 14, The Independent, page 17, column 2

   The musical elements comment on a character’s need for his escape, counterbalance his feelings of entrapment, and also, in typical Potteresque style, reveal the influences of pop culture on a particular soul.

   2005, John Kenneth Muir, Singing a New Tune: The Rebirth of the Modern Film Musical, from Evita to De-Lovely and Beyond, Applause Theatre, →ISBN, page 248

4. Resembling or characteristic of English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist Beatrix Potter (1866–1943).

   The story is purely “Potteresque”: a morality tale in which the inescapable moral is neatly evaded. . . . Beatrix Potter’s tongue-in-cheek humor is still as fresh as it was in 1903.

   1974 March 6, Jennifer Farley Smith, The Christian Science Monitor, page F2; quoted in Ann Block and Carolyn Riley, editors, Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, Criticism, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People, volume 1, Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Company, 1976, →ISBN, page 154, column 2

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   Miss Lloyd, becomingly arrayed in dull pink, sat behind the big table looking very like a Beatrix Potter mouse. […] More Potteresque than ever, Miss Lloyd rocked back on her chair, peeling with merriment, as though it were the greatest of jokes, then broke off in ladylike confusion.

   1987, Katharine Hill, Ladies’ Chain, Love Stories Ltd., →ISBN, page 80

   With the growth of interest in rare breeds, the Herdwick sheep seems set for a major revival. Beatrix Potter spent considerable time, and money, improving the strains of Herdwick in her day, whether inspired by their quaint white faces – very ‘Potteresque’ or the excellent quality of their mutton, is a debatable point.

   2000, Heather Hay Ffrench, Great British Food, London: Quiller Press, →ISBN, page 109

   But kawai might also be the very quality the Japanese respond to in Mr Beckham—and cuteness of a peculiarly Potteresque kind at that. Just look at his World Cup-period hairdo: a straight steal from the pages of Beatrix Potter, surely, combining the two-toned contrast of Tommy Brock and the spiky quiff of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

   2002 August 31, “Cute”, in The Economist, page 40, column 2

   The delightful cottage of Hill Top was Beatrix Potter's first house in the Lake District, and it features in lots of her books and illustrations, making it a must for Potter fans. Admission includes an informative guided tour with one of the house's guides, but half the fun is spotting all the tiny Potteresque details for yourself.

   2013, Oliver Berry, Fionn Davenport, Marc Di Duca, Belinda Dixon, Peter Dragicevich, David Else, Damian Harper, Anna Kaminski, Catherine Le Nevez, Fran Parnell, Andy Symington, Neil Wilson, Discover Great Britain, Lonely Planet, →ISBN, page 216

   Synonyms: Beatrix Potteresque, Beatrix Potterish